


Read Between the Lines

by kriari (kadielkrieger)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:57:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadielkrieger/pseuds/kriari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After spending five seasons rooted firmly in subtext, Stiles and Derek's relationship has finally taken a critical turn. While Tyler may attempt to blame his recent confusion on simple character bleed, a questionable decision made in the midst of the ensuing media storm leads him to reevaluate what he's always told himself. Namely, that he's not in love with Dylan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my wonderful betas, bluefjords and dizzzylu for all their support and encouragement. And to my artist, peculiaritea, you've been a joy to work with, thank you for being so awesome!
> 
> Check out peculiaritea's fanmix and cover art to accompany this work, [here](http://peculiaritea.livejournal.com/121424.html)!

Tyler lives for Tuesday.

Not all of them, of course. Tuesday, like any other day, can devolve into a righteous cluster given opportunity. But, in general.

This particular Tuesday meanders by on the slow, lazy legs of a sultry September. A high pressure system sits off the coast, screwing with the surf, driving the temp into hundred year record territory. Because of it, Tyler considers staying in, hunkering down to do some quality time with his couch and overloaded DVR. Or not staying in, but calling JR and dragging his sorry, sweltering ass into the city to bitch about the weather somewhere respectable. Like a bar. With a beer, maybe two.

Instead, he paddles out into the ocean and floats, waiting for waves that will never come. The sky has turned a flat, pale blue that belongs to the desert, clouds hugging the coastline like sweet stringy pulls of spun sugar. Tyler closes his eyes.

Not that anyone will ask him, but if they did, he’d swear up and down it was only for a second, just one long blink to earn relief from the glare. He’d be wrong. And lying. And really fucking stupid. The first rule of surfing is to respect the ocean. Like fight club. Except the ocean can really kill you and fight club probably wouldn’t. When Tyler wakes up, he’s drifted nearly three and a half miles down the beach, the tide tugging his board within twelve yards of the last buoy.

Which, admittedly, is not the end of the world. Just means he’ll get a second workout today.

Halfway to shore, the wind kicks up at his back, pushing him in, and Tyler’s grateful for it. Even with the help, paddling takes time, time to catch his breath, time to jog the last half mile up the beach with his board bouncing awkwardly against his hip. His stomach growls, churning when he passes a little too close to one of the houses. Tyler waves to the guy holding court on the back patio because he’s still capable of neighborly behavior. In actuality, he’s eyeing the dude’s practically pornographic Meatmaster apron only half as hard as the steak he’s searing.

Six more houses.

Six.

Moments later, Tyler spills into the family room, board discarded against the trellis. Inside, the house is dark and the kind of quiet he usually aches for on set. The tile stretches, comforting and cool against the soles of his feet, sand sloughing off with each step. He snags a banana to tide him over until he can either cook, order in, or make someone bring him something. As much as Tyler appreciates the solitude, restlessness itches just under his skin, the need to move, to do, even if it doesn’t involve leaving the house. By his own admission, he’s a homebody, more interested in relaxing than being seen, but he’s been on his own too much the past few days. His parents left Thursday to cruise the Mediterranean. Ian took off for Australia. Jill’s holed up in Boston. Posey booked an indie in Texas. After two years spent circling, Crys and Dan disappeared to Bangkok, in each other’s pockets again like the break-up never happened. Holland and Colton flew out to NYC yesterday to storm Fashion Week.

And it’s not like Tyler spends his entire life bumming around the house waiting for everyone else to come home when he’s not working. There’s Spain in early October and Ireland for Halloween. But he wants some noise tonight.

There’s really only one call to make.

Tyler ignores the steady pulse of light reminding him he has voicemail in favor of thumbing the lock on his phone open and dialing. Primarily because he is _actually_ starving. The line clicks open on the third ring and when Dylan doesn’t say anything at first, Tyler can’t help himself.

He growls, “Bring me meat!” into the mic, waiting for the off-color joke that’s bound to follow with a kind of giddy glee few people inspire in him. Dylan will have one, he always does. There’s a rolodex of surprising, hilarious shit going on in Dylan’s head twenty-four seven, and he can’t resist an opening like that.

Except Dylan does, swallowing the natural laugh and burying it under a sigh. “Um, yeah,” he mutters, cagey. Tyler can hear him fidgeting, the rasp of knuckle against the bow of his upper lip. “I could do that,” Dylan continues, halting and uncertain. “If you want. Did you talk to Jeff?”

The question could be, would be, innocuous if only Dylan’s voice hadn’t wavered. Things being as they are, the words string together and settle in Tyler’s stomach, heavy and inescapable. Maybe Derek Hale died during the summer between seasons they never seem to see. Maybe he’s been written out and everyone else already knows. Which, okay, would explain the weirdness, he guesses. Silence hangs between them for too long, Tyler listening to the uneven huffs of Dylan’s breath filtering down the line. No matter how much he wants to ask, he knows it’s not Dylan’s place to say. Suddenly, the blinking light makes sense.

“I guess I should do that,” he murmurs quietly, mostly to himself.

Dylan answers anyway, says, “Yeah,” then shakes off the moment, tone bright, almost too happy. “Burgers or steak?”

“Steak,” Tyler responds, on autopilot.“See you soon?”

“Yeah,” Dylan says again and hangs up without saying goodbye.

Avoidance seems like the best, maybe the only, option, but there’s a distinct lack of immediate distraction. Tyler can only stare for so long at the pale gold flecks and chips of quartz lodged just under the surface of his poor, abused countertops before he goes cross-eyed. The phone makes a shushing noise when he spins it, case dragging against the imperfections put there by a second family he never expected to have. They can’t fire him. The contracts for season five were signed a month ago, before season four wrapped, and his name was on one of them. Besides, he’s not ready to let Derek go. It has to be something else.

Jeff would tell him in person if it was that. Probably.

Weakness stays his hand, and doubt. That niggling voice in the back of his head that asks, “What if?” over and over until he’s forced up and out to hit the gym or the waves. Tyler trusts in his abilities, his interpretation. Always has. Jeff, the network, that’s a different story. By the time he gets his shit together, the phone has gone to sleep. When he thumbs it open again, the voicemail pops up automatically. For a moment, Tyler considers listening to it, but if it really is bad news, he’d rather hear it from a human being.

He shoves himself away from the island and dials Jeff’s private cell instead, pacing.

Jeff sounds breathless when he finally answers, foregoing the customary, “Hello” for a “Tyler” that reveals nothing.

“I haven’t--” Tyler starts, then reconsiders halfway through the thought. “Dylan said I should call you,” he begins again. “I haven’t listened to my voicemail.”

“Doesn’t say anything anyway.”

“Oh.” If he wasn’t wound so tight right now, he might plant himself in the corner of the couch, drag the chenille throw off the arm no matter how damned hot it is. Instead he walks, long strides that carry him from the front door to the back, focusing on the way the seams of his wet suit dig into his hips with the zipper pried open and peeled down, the grit of sand beneath his heels. 

“Why do you sound like your dog just died?”

Tyler chuckles but it sounds thin, so he chokes it off with his hand, the heel of it caught between his teeth for three centering seconds before he finds it in him to answer. “I don’t know. Dylan was...not Dylanny when I talked to him.” _Like, maybe it’s bad_ , Tyler thinks but doesn’t say.

Jeff hums like he does when he’s thinking, trying to figure out how to revise a scene that didn’t translate from page to screen, and Tyler stops, hands bunching to involuntary fists at his sides.

“Jeff?”

“Hmm?,” he says. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“No problem.”

“We should really have Chloe on with us for this. You’re still with her, right?”

“Far as I know,” Tyler says, the last word drawn out three syllables too long because Chloe’s his publicist, not his agent. The zipper on his wetsuit becomes the most fascinating thing ever. “Should I try to track her down?”

“Nah. Not really necessary. She’s a smart girl. Probably already knows.”

“Knows what?”

Tyler prides himself on keeping an even keel. Life’s easier when you don’t worked up about things you can’t change and doing what he does requires maintaining a certain level of zen. The alternative would mean going insane, shaving his head again, drinking himself into a stupor, or getting arrested. And that seems like a giant, expensive pain in the ass, truth be told. So, zen it is. 

Apparently, though, Jeff’s mission for the day is to destroy his carefully kept calm. The line goes silent for a long stretch, long enough Tyler wonders if the call dropped, but then Jeff sighs at him. Not weary or sad, necessarily, but like he’s not sure how Tyler’s going to take whatever he has to say. It’s similar to that time he came to Tyler about his plans to kill Derek for the space of an episode, and the tightness in Tyler’s chest eases ever so slightly.

“We’re taking it there,” Jeff says in a rush, words tumbling over each other in his haste to get them out. “Next season. Right now it’s a loose sketch at best, you know, but it’s looking like things will kick off at the end of 5A” There’s a pause followed by a swallow, then a breath. Tyler could kill Jeff right now. Maybe even with his bare hands. “Between Derek and Stiles.”

“Seriously?” As soon as the word leaves his lips, Tyler wishes he could take it back, because he’s not surprised by the decision, but the cloak and dagger makes him want to hit things a little.

“We can talk about what you’re comfortable with. I know you’ve both been preparing for this subconsciously, but I don’t you to feel like you have to do anything--”

Tyler cuts him off, because, really, when Jeff gets going he’s hard to put a pin in. “I’m good,” Tyler says, and he means it. Hell, he’d been expecting this call last summer, in the hiatus between shooting the two halves of season four. “Actually, I’m stoked. I thought you were going to can my ass. Kissing Dylan ranks like two-point-five on a scale of one-to-terrifying. Getting kicked off the show is at least a six.”

“Oh.” Jeff says and sighs again, relieved. “Well, okay then.”

“You thought I wouldn’t be cool?” As vocal as he’s been about supporting the relationship, platonic or otherwise, it’s a kick in the pants to realize Jeff thought he might feel any other way.

“No it’s not that.”

“Was Dylan not...?” Tyler can’t imagine it, but Dylan gets weird about expressing certain aspects of himself on film. Like, nakedness. Or shirtlessness. Just because he announced his “equal opportunity love monkey status” to his nearest and dearest, doesn’t mean he’s crazy about making out with a guy on TV.

Maybe he’s just not crazy about making out with Tyler.

Jeff scoffs, coughing into the phone. “Dylan’s fine, actually. He was worried about you.”

“Why?”

“Tyler.” Only his mother manages to pour that much significance into his name, and it turns Tyler weirdly homesick before he sighs. Right now it mostly means he’s asking stupid questions, like Dylan _should_ be worried about him. He takes it out on the ugly throw pillow Holland bought him as a housewarming gag years ago, twisting the fabric into knots.

“No, I just.” Tyler feels a furrow carve itself into the space between his brows and rubs at it with his thumb, which doesn’t help the headache. “After everything, you really thought I wouldn’t be cool,” he says, dispensing with the question this time, because it’s clear everyone involved expected him to flip out.

“It’s different. I mean, hypotheticals are one thing. Stirring up the fanbase. But this, it’s different. You have to know that.”

“How the hell is it different?” he snaps. He doesn’t mean to, it just happens. When has he ever been anything other than completely professional? This is the job, and it’s hardly a hardship. So he doesn’t run around kissing other dudes in his spare time, doesn’t mean he can’t.

“Because Dylan’s out. Ish. To us at least.”

“And?” 

“And you’re the straightest arrow that ever rode a quiver, Hoechlin.” Jeff says, as if it’s a given, an inalienable truth. Like that has any bearing on whether or not Tyler’s game for this.

“That’s a gigantic assumption to come flying out of nowhere,” he blurts without thinking, and that alone is enough to put Tyler in motion again, the rhythmic slap of his feet against porcelain calming. It _is_ an assumption, a wild one even, especially since it’s not the complete truth. There’s never been a reason to get into it because he does gravitate toward women pretty exclusively. Explaining how he’d rather not rule out half the human race for the simple fact they possess dicks didn’t seem like a priority when he’s never actually been with a guy.

“Tyler, it’s not a judgment. Just a fact. Are you telling me you’re not?”

“No,” he says, switching the phone to his other ear to buy time. “But I never said I was either.”

“The thing about being heterosexual, there is no coming out party. You just are. It’s annoying”

And as painfully, unfairly true as that is, Tyler’s jaw aches from holding his tongue. He loves Jeff. As a friend. As a boss. As a human being. He’s just not up for weathering the guilt tonight. Like, at all. “Much as I’d like to catch up,” he says. “Dylan’s on his way over. I still smell like seaweed and dead fish so I should probably...”

“By all means.” There’s a clunk of heavy glass against wood on the other end of the phone, a voice in the background. “Thanks for being, y’know.”

“Of course,” Tyler answers, a little tight-lipped, then mutters, “Talk soon,” and hits end.

Movement helps to ground him, always has, so Tyler scoops the coffee table clean, loads the dishwasher, shoves the stools back under the edge of the island, wipes up the ring where his mug sat this morning. And for no other reason than the fact he actually does smell like cured herring, he showers. By the time he finishes, an hour has passed and lacking anything else to clean or straighten, he waits.

Above all, Tyler doesn’t want this development to make things weird. Of course, his choice of diversions has already thwarted him, because he doesn’t clean for Dylan. According to his mother (and his sister and his grandmother), he should. But they always seem to forget he and Dylan lived together in Atlanta and the only other person who could be more prepared for and thus forgiving of his clutter, is Posey. Or his brothers.

Whatever.

This is not a first date or a fourth date or any kind of date. He’s hanging with Dylan, probably watching one of the ballgames stacked up on his DVR and eating some meat. The fact they’ll have to make out in front of the cast and seventy odd crew members in the near future changes exactly nothing. Unfortunately, his body can’t seem to get with the program. The heat from his shower has settled in under Tyler’s skin, and even though he has the A/C turned down as far as it goes, he can feel the sweat beading at the nape of his neck, moisture mingling with the water still clinging to his hair. The t-shirt he threw on after is stuck to his back and the loose basketball shorts he rescued from a questionably clean pile in his bedroom aren’t faring much better.

It is weird, could never not be weird, but Tyler doesn’t want it to be. If he makes a big deal, his relationship with Dylan will change, and that’s not an acceptable loss.

Adrenaline floods his system when the doorbell rings, heart thumping hard, twice, before he breathes deep and yells, “S’open.”

It’s open because he left it open, because apparently this is where they are, what they do. This is casual. Also, Tyler selfishly wants to get a read on Dylan’s state of mind before they look each other in the eye and talk about this. Adults do that, so he’s heard.

Dylan appears then, backlit by the fixture in the entryway. He hovers, shoulders slumped and eyes darting, and when he finally steps into the warm circles of gold and red cast by the pendants hanging over the island, his hair is a disaster, like he’s been dragging his hands through it with extreme prejudice. The bags crinkle when Dylan sets them down, brown kraft paper with ‘Emilio’s’ scratched across the front in stylized green font.

For a second, Tyler wonders if he could love Dylan if he was going to love a dude. Because nothing smells quite like Lena’s mac’n’cheese - asiago, pecorino romano, extra sharp white cheddar, and chives. It’s his favorite, the first thing he gets after they wrap, when he doesn’t have to worry about flashing his abs on national television every other day. Unseemly as it may be, Tyler could eat an entire catering pan full of the stuff and feel perfectly fine about it after the fact. Emotionally. Physically would be an entirely different story.

That’s not the point. The point is Dylan knows. He thought Tyler might be freaked and went half an hour out of his way to hit Emilio’s for their mac and steaks. Sharpie scrawl decorates the side of each container, and if he’s translating Lena’s chicken scratch correctly, Tyler might actually have to kiss Dylan. The shorthand on the one closest to him claims there’s a ten ounce filet cooked medium rare inside.

Dylan stills, like someone pressed pause on his master track, and his voice sounds weird when he says, “Except that would be awkward,” then his hands skitter-stop back into twitchy motion. Because Tyler’s a dick and said that out loud. At least he left out the part where he could maybe love Dylan. Talk about awkward.

“I didn’t…” Tyler says, backpedaling like a champ, but _damn_ , they are going to have to talk about this and depending on how Jeff imagines things going down, he will have to kiss Dylan. Derek will have to kiss Stiles. Whatever.

“I know.” Dylan sighs, brows drawing together before he shakes his head and starts pulling out dishes and silverware, pushing through the weirdness because Dylan has practice at it. By his own admission, he’s spent his entire life uncomfortable in some form or fashion. And Tyler’s not sure what it says about them that Dylan knows he prefers to eat off actual plates when he can, even if the food originated in a Styrofoam container. Probably something. Dylan smirks as he pries the boxes open and scoops out a healthy spoonful of pasta onto one of the plates, stabbing a slab of meat and slapping it down alongside.

Satisfied, he licks his fingers, settling the plate carefully in the crook of his arm as he grabs for a length of paper towel and then a beer from Tyler’s fridge without asking.

“Hey, you don’t have to wait on me,” Tyler says, finally shoving himself up and out of the corner of the couch.

The look Dylan flashes him is familiar and peeved, and Tyler clings to it. “Fuck you, I’m not.” Predictably, Dylan throws himself at the spot Tyler just vacated and Tyler’s thankful he hasn’t opened the beer yet. It would have sloshed everywhere. “I’m hungry. You want food, it’s on the counter.”

“Good. Long as we’re clear on that.”

From his post behind the couch, Tyler can smell the food better, sure, but he’s also got Dylan in profile. He can hear the snort, clearly, but can’t figure out what to make of the expression that accompanies it.

Before he can comment, Dylan’s in motion again, one hand on the remote and the other on his plate, his lips stretching around, “Crystalline like Maybelline, man” while he pushes buttons to power everything on and kicks his heels up on Tyler’s coffee table like he owns the place.

Tyler takes the easy road, asks, “What does that even mean?” turning his back on Dylan and his psycho mixed signals to load his own plate.

“Hell if I know,” Dylan mutters under his breath, the intonation all kinds of wrong. Usually, Tyler can read Dylan, and whatever this is screws with his perception so bad it leaves him standing in the kitchen with a heaping helping of cooling food, wondering whether he’d be welcome if he went and sat down. As if he can somehow read minds now, Dylan cranes at him over the top of couch, all smiles. “So what are we watching?” And that, sadly, gives Tyler permission.

“I’ve got a game...” he says, then shovels a forkful of macaroni into his mouth. The moaning just happens, completely without his permission, this stuff is _that_ good.

Dylan glances at him, mouth twitching, waving the impressive piece of steak around on his fork. Tyler fears for its welfare. “Do you need some alone time?”

“Maybe,” Tyler groans, because, seriously. “One of these days, I swear I’m going to get Lena to make me enough to fill a bathtub, and then eat my way out.”

“That’s a pretty impressive kink there, dude. Didn’t know you had it in you.” Dylan talks with his mouth full, sometimes, like they’ve suddenly become actual wolves. Or like he’s still a thirteen year old kid. Every time, Tyler stares at him until his teeth snap together and he gets on with the chewing. “Also, gross.”

“I just really like this macaroni.”

“As long as you don’t _like_ like macaroni,” Dylan says, picking at his own pile of cheesy goodness. “Because I don’t think they recognize that. Even in California.“

“Why am I suddenly marrying macaroni?”

Dylan shrugs, shoving an impressive clump of pasta in his face, then grins around his fork like he thinks he’s adorable. Which, yeah, he kind of is. And this, Tyler tells himself, is why the fans want what they want. Because Dylan’s an adorable doofus and Tyler can’t help himself, it’s a compulsion at this point to answer that grin with one of his own, tension easing out of his limbs.

If anyone can be blamed, it’s Dylan. That’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.

Snatching the remote from Dylan when he’s distracted takes no effort at all, and Tyler flips through the DVR idly, looking for the Dodgers game from Sunday. Between mouthfuls of steak, Dylan rattles on about his parents and the new dog they got while Dylan was off shooting his summer away. Tyler grunts his answers and glares with increasing fervor at the stupid box that is, for whatever reason, denying him the baseball he so desperately needs. Out of the corner of his eye, Dylan flails, his mouth full again but thankfully closed. When Tyler turns to stare at him, he swallows.

“Dude, wait. Did you seriously DVR _The Godfather_?”

Tyler pushes the last chunk of steak around his plate to stall. “My sister has my box set, okay. I didn’t know when I’d ever see it again. If I’d ever see it again.”

“And you couldn’t live without it?” When Dylan’s face lights up, it really lights up. Like one of those antique pinball machines pushed into TILT.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to judge, man. Unless we’re going to discuss your thing with _Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?_ ”

Dylan holds his hands up in mock surrender, rebalancing his plate with an elbow when his knee knocks it off-kilter. “Carmen is a classic, dude. Still, no judgment from my end,” he says, and he’s so earnest Tyler kind of wants to smack him. “I’m, like, a mob movie fiend. I totally get it.”

“Wanna?”

“Hell yes, I do.”

Just in time, Tyler remembers the thing. The thing they need to talk about even if neither of them really wants to. “Dylan,” he says, pitching his voice low and careful, trying to figure out for himself what he feels about what they’re going to have to do, where they’ll have to do it. Not like they’ve never egged it on, they totally have. Tyler vaguely remembers giving Dylan a piggyback ride down the press line last year at Comic-Con. After the ship video, they’d had to do _something_. But there’s a damn continent worth of real estate between screwing around to mobilize the fanbase and actually throwing down on camera.

On an average day, Tyler’s pretty good at expressing himself. Derek Hale’s emotional constipation tends to make him more likely to share in the real world, not less. But then Dylan has also been around him enough, he doesn’t have to say the hard things, the ones that can mostly be conveyed with an appropriately timed backslap or an arm slung around his shoulders.

This, unfortunately, requires words.

“Dylan,” he starts again, the plastic of the remote making his palm sticky with sweat. “Look, are you...?”

“We don’t need-- I don’t need to.” Dylan scowls at the last of his macaroni, lets the plate clatter down on the coffee table, and stares longingly at his beer . “Do we have to?”

“Since when do you avoid having conversations? You love conversations. Even the potentially embarrassing ones. Especially the embarrassing ones.”

Dylan’s eyes flick to the clock, the lamp in the corner, the stitching on the couch cushion, then finally the hole fraying at the knee of his jeans. “It’s not that,” he mumbles and does reach for his beer then, slicking his thumb through the condensation. “What’s there to talk about?”

“Well, I mean. I think we should figure out what to tell Jeff when he asks.” Tyler sighs and leans back into the corner he’s staked out, plate propped against his thighs. “Better to put up a united front going in, y’know, instead of confusing things in the room.”

Whatever else happens, Tyler wants them to be in this together, wants to be comfortable with how it goes down. Both the physical and the emotional, because after his long and storied history of dating disaster, it’s going to take a lot to crack Derek’s nut. Figuratively speaking. And Stiles will probably have to make the first move. Derek would never unless he was...

“I just hope they’re doing it for the right reasons,” Dylan says, disrupting Tyler’s descent into the bottomless pit of Hale dysfunction. “And I hope it won’t suck too bad for you.”

“What?” Tyler asks, shocked by the sound of his voice since he can’t remember giving his mouth permission to move. “Why would it suck for me?”

“Dude, don’t make me say it.”

Restless, Dylan’s fingers clench and unclench both around the neck of the bottle and the curve of his thigh. He still won’t look at Tyler and that’s a problem. Appetite gone, Tyler sets his plate down beside Dylan’s and risks sliding closer. To comfort, that’s all. Dylan seems to need it. There’s enough of each of them in their characters for Tyler to know he can wait Dylan out, so he does, bouncing his knee against Dylan’s because he doesn’t want to spook him.

True to form, Dylan cracks, eventually. “I just-- _argh_.” The beer gets abandoned with a hollow clank, Dylan’s fingers scraping at his chin hard enough Tyler expects him to be down a layer of skin by the time they get through this conversation.

Tyler says, “What?” again and this time means to do it.

“Just.” Dylan flails again, cheeks flushed in the half light. “I get to make out with all of that.” Tyler feels the weight of Dylan’s gaze as it rakes over him, sharp and appreciative and completely unabashed before he becomes suddenly, completely enamored with the floor. “I mean, not for real or anything, but yeah. Newsflash, you’re still you.”

That’s not all of it, not nearly. Long ago, Tyler developed a bullshit detector tuned specifically to Dylan’s frequency. Ironically, it was around the time he realized just how many masks Dylan was throwing up in front of the real Stiles, with zero apparent effort. Part of using those skills wisely comes in knowing when to push. When not to. So when Dylan finally, _finally_ , looks up, Tyler can’t read everything in his face, but he’s pinned down an educated guess, enough of one to decide.

“And you’re an idiot,“ Tyler says, which is not the most supportive way to actually be supportive.

Desperate times.

Sadly, though not unexpectedly, that course of action backfires, because Dylan snorts, the sound lodging in the back of his throat. At a loss, Tyler reaches out to grab at his chin, grip loose enough Dylan could get away if he wanted. Hoping it’s worth the risk, that Dylan won’t just deflect or distract or crack an inappropriate joke the way he always does. Dylan lets Tyler manhandle him, even opens his eyes, his expression back to being pretty damn indecipherable. Guarded, suspicious, but beyond that, nothing.

Someone, somewhere did a number on Dylan and Tyler can’t be sure who. He knows the O’Briens and they’re not the type, so it must have been classmates or an ex-girlfriend or kids at school. Tyler forgets, all the damn time, that in spite of how well he handles the attention Dylan hasn’t been in the business his entire life. His skin isn’t quite as thick. He hasn’t been told by an agent or a publicist or a makeup girl how awesome he is on a daily basis. All things Tyler sometimes takes for granted. “You know you’re like ridiculously hot, right?” Which, while completely true, is not something Tyler says to his penis-possessing friends on a regular basis. He doesn’t want to weird anyone out. “And pretty much amazing in every way.”

Dylan squints at him for a breath, then two. “Don’t fuck with me, man. Not tonight. You’re straight and I’m so very much not you.”

“So what? Even if that were true,” Tyler says, pausing to acknowledge the fact that, yes, he’s owning up to his flexibility. But it’s Dylan and Dylan will understand better than anyone. Either that or he’ll completely ignore it. Whatever. “That doesn’t change the fact that you’re attractive, Dyl. There are hundreds of thousands of millions of girls in the world right now who would cut off their arm to suck face with you, okay? And at least half as many guys.”

“But they don’t know me or anything. It’s _weird_.”

“Well, I do.” Tyler squeezes Dylan’s jaw before he lets go, leaning into his space just enough to make sure he gets his point across. “And while kissing on camera is one of the biggest pains in my ass, I can state with absolute certainty - it will not suck for me. Okay?”

Dylan shifts again, leaning forward to pluck at the hem of his shirt, his cheeks still flushed, but his voice is steady when he answers. “Um, yeah. Okay.”

“Good.”

“So. _The Godfather_?”


	2. Chapter 2

_One year later…_

“You ready for this?”

Chloe smiles at him from her corner of the backseat, all bright red maneater lips and gigantic bourbon-colored eyes, concern crinkling that place between her brows just as it has since Tyler was a teenager caught in a whirlwind of Tom Hanks’ making. Her phone buzzes, rattling the clasp on her purse, and she ignores it, reaching out to fix a too-long tuft of hair where it drifted down over his ear, nails scraping the lobe.

She wants an answer, an honest one, otherwise she’d be texting.

“As ready as I was for the other three interviews I sat through today, I guess,” Tyler says, flashing his teeth before he grabs her hand and squeezes it, then combs his own fingers through his hair to mess it up again.

Ready is a relative term. For the most part, Tyler has let Dylan drive the other sessions, his quick wit and easy charm more than a match for whatever new nonsense the hosts came up with. If anything, the questions have been slightly more inane than usual, teasing that threshold of lewd and lascivious they usually avoid because _Teen Wolf_ is still technically for teens.

Fictional or not, Tyler’s not the type to kiss and tell.

“This isn’t the same,” Chloe says, brushing an invisible piece of lint from his shoulder, then his arm. If they had any other kind of relationship, Tyler might get the wrong idea, but Chloe has only ever wanted to take care of him. “There’s a reason Luke and I scheduled Charity last.”

“Because she shoots later in the day?” Ed, their driver, huffs a laugh he covers with a cough, eyes sparkling merrily when Tyler meets them in the rearview.

“Stop being a pain in my ass.”

“Just saying.”

On the other side of their tinted windows, LA crawls by, late afternoon traffic clogging the secondaries, and Chloe settles her hands in her lap, lacing her fingers together so tightly her knuckles bleed white. She looks at him, studying, trying to find the lie she thinks lives there, but must come up empty.

“Look.” Tyler scrubs a rough hand over his face. His palm comes away covered in stage makeup and he grimaces. “I’m not going to pretend this is my absolute favorite way to spend a day. But I’m good. Hell, Dylan’s doing the heavy lifting. All I have to do is shrug and smile, maybe laugh a time or two.”

There’s truth enough in the words to keep her happy, and Tyler has all kinds of practice at faking the difference.

“All I want for Christmas is for you to be careful, Tyler.” Chloe shifts, angling toward him, her tailored pencil skirt stretching taut when she curls her knees up, her pumps abandoned beneath the seat in front of her. “Can you do that for me? Pretty please? Charity will eat you alive otherwise.”

Tyler levels her with a look. He can’t pull off the same quality of bitchface as Derek Hale because he always ends up grinning. “Why did you guys book her at all, then?”

“Press is press, sweetheart,” Chloe says, and the tight little bundle of muscle bunched at the hinge of her jaw eases. “This is once-in-a-lifetime.”

“Yeah.” Tyler sighs and studies her for a change, giving up on figuring out her motives when she slides her sunglasses back into place. He wonders if press is all that matters to her.

Coming into it, Tyler knew there’d be buzz. Jeff insisted on keeping the moment, the circumstances surrounding it, locked down. If he was going to give the fans cake and actually let them eat it, the man had a right to say when and where to light the candles. So, Tyler kept quiet and planned for the inevitable shitstorm, even talked Dylan into doing the same when he shrugged, saying he’d wing it. Hell, he and Chloe sat across from Jeff in his office for a couple of mind-numbing hours last week, strategizing, figuring out how to address the questions without giving anything away or painting Jeff into some inescapable creative corner.

Nothing could have prepared him for reality.

Yes, he kissed Dylan on camera. From Tyler’s perspective, biased though it may be, getting the characters to a place where the kiss was not only fathomable but inevitable seems a much more heroic achievement than four seconds of desperate liplock surrounded by two long beats of awkward silence. Doesn’t matter how long it took them to put the scene to bed without laughing their asses off. Somehow, they took two characters with every reason to hate each other and gave them common ground, a mutual respect that led to not only trust but affection. Derek relies on Stiles now, even when they infuriate each other.

That’s newsworthy.

Derek Hale _let_ Stiles in. Truly in.

Since no one has asked, Tyler feels like maybe he should tell them, the knowledge burns bright and fierce behind his ribs. But when he turns back to Chloe to explain, she’s distracted, flipping through her email and the moment’s gone.

 

* * *

 

“Hello my darlings, and welcome to Charity After Dark. I am, as always, your intrepid host Charity Clark.”

Lights flare just out of frame, red and blue, a golden circle laid down around the host, and the opening monologue drones on, titters of laughter blooming to shameless guffaws. Tyler tunes them out.

Reality rarely outstrips expectation, at least in Tyler’s experience, but Charity Clark comes close. Her studio, clearly recently renovated, boasts all the creature comforts a slot-winner deserves, sleek circular desk and oversized leather armchairs. Charity stands tall on a small secondary set to their left, the heel of one leopard print stiletto tapping against the glossy surface of the stage. Until three days ago, Tyler had never seen the show, though he’d heard of Charity Clark in passing, whispers that deemed her the Perez Hilton of late night. In living, breathing color, she commands the room, fearless in owning herself even though she looks a little like a disaster waiting to happen.

Biting his lip against the smile, Tyler catches Dylan’s attention with a kick, quirking a brow instead of saying anything the thousand and one mics could pick up. Over the past six months, Dylan’s comprehension of what he calls “The Great Rosetta Brow of Hale” has become not only an obsession but a necessity. Building what they’ve built between their characters required finesse, sure, but also a ridiculous amount of body language interpretation on Stiles’ part, so Dylan gets it, smirking a tight half smirk that sharpens the dimples cut into his cheeks and mouths, “I don’t even know.”

Charity grins, tossing her hair back over her shoulder before she claps her hands together, nudging them up under her chin. It’s meant to be endearing, childlike, but the quirk of her lips turns the expression into one that earns the eleven o’clock time slot.

“Today, ladies and gentleman, we have a real treat. On deck, two of the young studs from MTV’s _Teen Wolf_ \- Tyler Hoechlin and Dylan O’Brien. After the break, we’ll get all the behind-the-scenes dirt on season five so far. Stay tuned for their answers to all my _probing_ questions.”

One of the guys stationed on camera B raises his hand, then snaps it back. “And we’re clear,” he says. “Charity on A in five.”

The crowd buzzes to life, candy wrappers crinkling, murmurs building to a hum that presses at Tyler’s eardrums. When the house lights come up, Tyler sees the posters littered throughout the audience, most of them crudely crafted with Sharpies and big, bubbly handwriting, most emblazoned, somewhere, with that word that’s not actually a word - Sterek.

A girl with red braids in the front row leans over the railing, shaking her sign, and screams, “We love you, Dylan!” The gang surrounding her, not a one of them a day over sixteen, dissolves into fits of giggles, hands clapped over their faces to conceal cheeks or mouth or eyes.

Beside him, Dylan beams back, answering in kind before leaning close to sling his arm around Tyler’s shoulders. The heat of his hand bleeds through the thin cotton of Tyler’s buttondown, Dylan’s expression familiar and fond. Vaguely, Tyler registers a second round of squealing, accompanied by a symphony of sighs. “C’mon, big guy. Wave to the ladies. You know they want you to.”

“You’re not helping anything, man,” Tyler grits out around the smile he finds for Dylan, the one he then turns on the crowd accompanied by an awkward little wave. “No one should be this hypersexed at three in the afternoon. It’s unnatural.”

Dylan laughs at that, head thrown back, jaw practically unhinged, and Tyler will never get over the way he lives in every single cell of his body. It pulls a genuine smile to his lips, unbidden, usurping the publicity smile with aching cheeks. “Speak for yourself, my Puritanical paprikash.” Off another pointed brow quirk, Dylan palms the back of Tyler’s neck, reeling himself back in, slowly. “This is nothing,” he says. “Wait until they start chanting. Didn’t Chloe put a package together for you?”

“Chanting for what, exactly?”

“For a kiss, of course.” Charity slips in behind her desk with surprising grace. Up close, she’s more put together than he thought, shots of pink threaded through her hair, eyeliner dark and smudged with rockgirl abandon. Her cloying floral perfume fills the scant space between her chair and Dylan’s, and Tyler coughs, can’t really help it. “This ain’t MTV boyos,” she says. “And I encourage audience participation.”

“As long as we leave with all our clothes, I think we’ll be fine. Right, Ty?” Dylan’s face contorts, flush rising, cheek twitching. Tyler missed out on the official crash course in Understanding Stiles thanks to Derek Hale’s complete inability to read anyone, but considering he already knew Dylan, he all too easily interprets the expression as, “Be cool, man.” Beneath it, he can see the dark circles, the pinch of tension Dylan gets at corners of his mouth when he’s ready to turn himself off and wind down, shake loose the filters he shoves between his brain and the world when they’re doing press.

“Yeah,” Tyler says, hoping he sounds more certain than he feels. “Sure.”

Charity snickers, shuffling through a stack of papers and muttering to herself. “Oh, no. I have no idea why the fans want this. Yes, it’s totally crazy.” She stops, baby blues sharply focused, French manicure tap, tap, tapping the surface of her desk, and for a handful of seconds Tyler lets her look, holds her gaze because she doesn’t scare him. “You two just fucked like eye-fucking bunnies all over my furniture. Pardon me if I don’t buy into the blushing virgin hype.”

If the words themselves weren’t enough, Charity’s tone tells, and after years in the business, Tyler knows exactly what kind of interview this is going to be. If it didn’t mean ending up with his balls in a sling courtesy of Chloe, he’d be tempted to walk out now.

“We’re just really good--” Dylan starts, laughing still.

The guy from before raises his hand again, flashers mounted on the ceiling pulsing bright and red to quiet the audience down. “And we’re back in five, four, three...”

Unsettled, Tyler turns to Dylan, tucks in close to his ear so the whisper can be heard over the hoots of the crowd. “We don’t have to do this,” he says. Dylan smells of laundry detergent and Red Bull, the nap of his henley soft from a hundred too many washings, warm and familiar. And yet, Tyler has no idea how he’ll react to this, what he’ll do. “We’re better than this,” Tyler says, instead of asking. “Right?”

Dylan huffs a silent little laugh, shoulder hitching to dislodge Tyler as he whispers back, “Chill out, dude. It’s not like they can actually make us do anything.”

Not for the first time, Tyler feels like they might be having two totally different conversations, but this isn’t really the time or place to clarify. Well, no. This is precisely the time and place to clarify, but they don’t have the luxury.

Charity’s open appraisal transforms as she turns to face the camera. And Tyler thinks about the beach, the way the surf foams up over the tiny section that belongs to him, discarding tangles of seaweed. The blaze of the sky when the sun dips just below the horizon, how it always warms him up from the inside out. He can actually feel the breeze kiss his skin, smell salt on the air, but then Charity speaks again, the throb of her sultry theme music yanking him back.

“Welcome back, everyone. As promised, I’m here tonight with two fan favorites from the summer sensation - _Teen Wolf_ \- Tyler Hoechlin.” Tyler waves again, grinning his best and brightest when the audience cheers. “And Dylan O’Brien.” The volume reaches deafening levels, and Tyler laughs in spite of himself, because he still can’t and will probably never be able to get over the crazy Beatlemania they seem to have tripped into. People have cheered him on for varying reasons since he was eight years old, but this, _Teen Wolf_ , is insane. Tyler glances at Dylan and finds him looking back, eyes bright and brows hiked up toward his hairline as if to say, ‘What the fuck?’ and Tyler shrugs. It’s all he can think to do.

Charity presses on, completely unperturbed. “Before we get down to business, let’s take a quick look at what got us all where we are today.”

_Previously on Teen Wolf_

Each of the other hosts had spun up the previouslies reel from episode twelve too, right before they dug into the interview, so the content is a known quantity. Tyler eases back into the chair, ankle propped against the opposite knee, settled for the moment. At least until the voiceover registers - his own instead of Holland’s - and the soundtrack that spills from the monitors overhead sounds like something from the first season. It’s enough to make him turn, peer past Dylan’s profile to put eyes on the flat panel mounted behind Charity’s desk.

Clips flip by fast, scanning until they land on a scene, any scene with Derek, Stiles, or Derek and Stiles. But then, it’s not every scene. The shot lingers when Derek grabs at Stiles, when Stiles reaches out for Derek. And he gets it, really. They’re here to talk about The Kiss, after all, it actually makes more sense to pull together a fresh set of clips instead of just using the standard cut from the show.

Still.

Whatever staff member slapped the thing together did so with some duct tape and a pretty terrifying degree of ignorance. Gone are the moments that actually make up the ramshackle skeleton of a relationship they all worked so hard to craft. The scene where Derek stands at his mother’s grave on her birthday with Stiles fidgeting at his shoulder passes in a blur. The one where Stiles takes Derek’s side, red-faced and furious, skips past without pause. The episode where the Sheriff ends up caught in the crossfire and Derek makes sacrifices, concessions he shouldn’t for a human who is not even pack gets glossed over entirely because Stiles doesn’t come to Derek until the following episode. All their fights make it in, the blow-ups that end with one or both of them getting physical. But the softer side, the collection of quiet, careful, breathless things that anchor possibility in reality and remove it from the realm of fevered daydream created by hormones and the cultural obsession with taming the dark-and-brooding rebel with a cause...those are, all of them, gone.

And that, more than anything he’s been asked today, more than anything that’s been screamed at him or inferred in his general direction, bothers Tyler. With those moments excised, all that remains is Derek’s aggression and poor judgment, the cloud of grief and failure hanging over his every effort to be better, to do better, and Stiles’ high-buzz-whining need to be useful, to keep everyone he cares about alive by the sheer, unstoppable force of his will. Without those moments, all they are is a couple of stubborn, dangerously practical scraps of sandpaper rubbing each other the wrong way until something finally gives.

Of course, the reel ends with The Kiss. Tyler can’t put a finger on when he started mentally applying capital letters, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less necessary. Under normal circumstances, now would be the time to fade to black, throw up the _Teen Wolf_ logo and get down to the actual interview, but no. Charity, or Charity’s producer, looped the scene in slo-mo and the audience erupts again, the screams crawling right up under his skin.

Tyler doesn’t remember catching Dylan’s lower lip between his teeth as they pulled apart, but apparently, in one of the takes, he did. He leans into Dylan again, shoulders pressed together, voice pitched low so the mics don’t pick it up. “Are they serious with this?”

Dylan doesn’t answer, fingers spread wide against the arms of his chair, knee a swinging pendulum between. The perpetual flush in his cheeks teeters toward the bright and splotchy end of the spectrum, his eyes glazed over when he turns them to meet Tyler’s. “What?” he murmurs, finally, blinking in that strange anime way he has, focus landing firmly on a point just past Tyler’s shoulder, but Tyler doesn’t have it in him to repeat himself.

The crowd shouts itself out, pockets of laughter sparking and catching here and there as they settle, and Charity grins at Dylan.

“So Dylan, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Um, what?” Dylan clears his throat, twice, before his gaze sharpens and he smirks, uneasily. “I could say a lot about myself, Charity, none of it good, so you’ll have to be a little more specific.”

“You know.”

“I really, _really_ don’t.” Dylan pulls a face, like this is officially the strangest interview ever. Tyler’s inclined to agree.

“Finally getting your hands on your brooding bad boy, what was that like?”

Bursts of sound skitter through the audience again, hissed conversations and murmurs kicking up in pockets.

“Well,” Dylan starts, picking his words carefully. It’s only then Tyler wonders if Dylan and Luke did time with Jeff, too. Hopefully, they did. “First of all, I only put hands on the fine specimen of manhood sitting next to me as an extension of Stiles, so...there’s that. And I don’t think Stiles was thinking all that clearly. Almost dying can make you do crazy sh...stuff.” A chorus of boos rises and Dylan squints out into the dark, hand raised to shadow his eyes like he can figure out who’s doing it and call them out. “That doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t want to, okay? So, chill.” He stops, chewing his lip, thoughtful. 

“Not really an answer, but fair enough. What about the kiss? A million inquiring minds want to know what that was like.”

The look Charity throws at Tyler leaves nothing to the imagination. He’s used to being mentally undressed. Shit, he’s used to being _actually_ undressed. But something about the tilt of her mouth or the set of her chin makes Tyler feel violated, cheap. Enough that he turns his head, stares at the black stitching that curls down the side of his shoe.

“It was...good?” Dylan fidgets, threading and unthreading his fingers fitfully. Against any and all logic, Tyler wants to reach out and push them to stillness. He doesn’t.

“C’mon,” Charity goads, and Tyler holds back the flinch he wants to let fly, barely.

“Tyler smells like moonbeams and his shoulders could give Atlas a run for his money. Is that what you’re looking for? Because yeah, no.” Dylan laughs, a crackling, uneasy thing, his knuckle looking to spark a forest fire with the way it’s rubbing against his lower lip. “Except the shoulder thing. That’s probably true.”

“And the whole truth?”

“On camera kisses are awkward. You spend so much time worrying about angles and lighting and getting coverage, there’s nothing much to talk about.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Beg if you want. Or plead. I hear pleading is in this year.”

“Dylan.”

Dylan rolls his eyes, neck going pink at the nape. “The whole truth is, his face is scratchy because, hey, perpetual five o’clock shadow. My nose was running because we were freezing our asses off in the middle of the freaking forest. And between each of the fifty million takes it took to get the scene locked, I had to keep my nasty Kleenex in his jacket pocket because they were making pretty obscene lumps in my pants.” A chorus of whistles sounds in the crowd at that and Dylan sighs. “And yes, Tyler is an awesomely awesome fake kisser the likes of which the world has never seen. You should all bow to his prowess and make offerings to his godliness. Happy?”

“Delighted. What about you, Tyler? Surely, our friendly neighborhood angst-wolf has thoughts about that kiss.”

“Of course he does.” Tyler shifts in his seat, fiddles with the fraying end of his shoelace while he tries to pull together all the twisting threads of Derek Hale. The hair on the back of his neck prickles under Charity’s frank assessment, the implications in her tone. “I think, like Stiles, Derek was in the moment. He didn’t really have time to process the what, much less the who. Also like Stiles, I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t want it necessarily. But I feel like he’s probably scared. I mean, he makes terrible choices and every romantic entanglement he’s ever had ended in murder, so it’s probably wise to be cautious. Which means he, of course, will barrel in blindly.”

Charity rears back in her chair, frowning, crazy nails buried in her hair. “Boys, boys, boys,” she says, clucking her tongue. “You’re gonna have to give me something!”

Fingers twitch against the leather at Tyler’s elbow, and Dylan barks out a laugh. They’ve lingered too long in Tyler’s opinion, given her more than enough to satisfy her appetite for possible scandal. “There’s just so many ways to misinterpret that,” Dylan says, aiming for reckless but missing the mark wide. “But I’m game.” Dylan usually is. “So, shoot.”

“Are those pecs as firm as they look on TV?”

Dylan blinks again, scratching at his chin, nervous as he almost always is in interviews and tired, but not truly uncomfortable. Yet. “Uh, sure? Hoechlin kills himself in the gym, so they’d kinda have to be.” Charity eyes Tyler, expectant, like the reason for the question was to get him to offer her a chance to touch. Which, no. Not in this lifetime. Her eyes skate away when she reads the refusal on his face, and Dylan mutters, “Is this really what you want--?”

“I bet he has quite the grip, too?” The audience rallies, and Tyler can feel the charge in the room. This is not what he signed up for, not what either of them signed up for. Sure, there’s a lot of skin on the show, even some manhandling, but it’s not like they’re shooting _Magic Mike_ on a weekly basis. The meat market mentality, even in fun, is a little tired, and where the other hosts respected them enough to mostly steer clear after a couple pointed questions, Charity, apparently, considers their comfort a non-issue.

Obviously perplexed, Dylan shoots him a quick glance and an uneasy smile, lips pulled tight at the corners when he nods. “I guess so, yeah. What with the working out. Though I hope you realize I’m gonna be super offended if you don’t ask this guy about my hot, pasty ass.”

Charity’s laughter grates on Tyler’s last nerve and for an insane second he considers just throwing Dylan over his shoulder and making a break for it, but Dylan simply huffs a stuttered breath and shoves at his shoulder, playfully.

“And down under?” Charity’s attention drifts, eyeline swinging over and down, and Tyler shifts, barely resisting the urge to cover himself. “I’m sure you got a lay of the land.”

“Are you really...”

“I’m asking if that southbound train met with your approval, sweetheart.”

“How would I even...?” Dylan sputters, flushing impossibly brighter, still trying to bullshit his way through the half hour, make the best of a rapidly disintegrating situation. “That’s not. We didn’t. Just, wow. I have no idea.”

“Why do I not believe you?” Charity says, the look she levels at both of them pure predator, a ridiculous cougar with boundary issues in seamed stockings and a sheath dress.

And that is _it_.

“Look, Charity. No disrespect, but unless you have something...” Tyler flips through words in his head, searching for the right one. Worthwhile, substantial, pertinent. “less offensive to ask us, I think Dylan and I are going to bow out and let your next guest take the hot seat.”

“Anatomical curiosity is offensive now? Ladies, I think we all know what that means.” Charity crooks her pinky and winks at the camera covering her close-ups.

His ears flush first, he feels the heat in them, then his chest, the collar of his shirt a searing stripe across the back of his neck. An ache works its way up between his shoulders, muscles pulling tight and tense, and Tyler fights for a neutral expression he has no hope of achieving. Any other day, he might be able, willing, to let Charity slide, but he’s spent the past six hours hopping in and out of chairs like this.

Outrageous questions are a dime a dozen in Hollywood, everyone chasing the next sound bite. Repetition, he can deal with. Interviews are all about finding different ways to say the same thing, give enough to seem charitable but not enough to lose your job. What they aren’t is an excuse for strangers to demand answers to invasive, inappropriate questions that have nothing to do with the show. Or for those same strangers to compromise a relationship, fictional or otherwise, he’s spent blood, sweat, and the past five years building by turning it all into some salacious circus.

The smile Tyler smiles feels more like baring his teeth, foreign and wrong without Derek Hale to wear it.

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” he says, and it’s so completely contrary to established interview etiquette, so completely against type for him and everything he believes in, Tyler’s throat nearly closes up around the words. This shouldn’t be happening. He _knows_ it shouldn’t be happening. “So if that’s all, I think I’m going to…” Tyler shifts in his seat and Dylan stares at him, teeth a slash of white against his lower lip, eyes narrowed with things he won’t ask and an unspoken plea to hold the fucking phone. For one bright, brilliant moment, Tyler simply doesn’t care.

“No, you know what? Me leaving won’t fix anything. But then neither will sitting here letting you forward whatever agenda you’re trying to push for the sake of ratings.”

“And what agenda is that?”

“You tell me.”

A warm weight curls around his elbow, Dylan’s fingers pressing into the hollow to get his attention. When Tyler looks at him, he’s looking back, wide-eyed, and the small, swift shake of his head couldn’t be clearer in its meaning.

“It was just a kiss,” he blurts out, ignoring Dylan and the twist of instinct furling tight in his belly. “Maybe it was a prelude. Maybe it was a mistake. But it’s not all they are. Or all they were. It’s definitely not all they will be.”

The crowd titters and Charity’s gaze sharpens, one perfect brow arched high, not with disbelief, with hunger, scenting blood in the water. Chloe warned him, and if Tyler could stop himself he would. Five years spent being shamelessly ogled and turned into a sex object. More than, if he’s being honest. Five years being careful about how they interact in public, how often they’re seen out together and where, so as not to fuel rumors that have nothing to do with their characters. Five years artfully deflecting questions about the relationship between Derek and Stiles that hadn’t even existed at the time. Now that it does, no one wants to talk about it, not _really_.

If it were just him, Tyler would happily deal. He’d grin and bear it, because that’s what he does. But Dylan doesn’t deserve this.

“Don’t cut things from the reel because they compromise your asinine fetishization of the bad boy mystique. Don’t make Stiles a victim. Don’t insult me by shoving Derek into some hot asshole box. Most of all, don’t waste our time.”

Dylan shifts beside him, leather creaking, practically vibrating out of his skin. Tyler doesn’t dare look at him. No way to be sure how Dylan will react and the last thing either of them needs right now is for Tyler to cap his rant off with a round of hysterical laughter. He’s pretty close to it already and if Dylan smirks at him, it’s over. A low-level murmur rumbles through the studio. And Charity strikes.

“So, this is a waste of your time? Interacting with the fans? Talking about the show?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m just saying that there’s more to Derek and Stiles than,” Tyler waves his hand at the flat screen behind Charity’s head, the one that’s still stuck on The Kiss. “...that. And I’m happy, no, excited to talk about it and the show. If you’d let me.”

“Okay, then. Let’s talk about Dylan’s hot, pasty ass.”

Dylan finally finds his tongue again, snickering around an “Oh my God” that sounds genuinely affronted.

In his wildest dreams, Tyler never would have imagined ending up in this situation. He’s a roll-with-the-punches kind of guy, the guy who doesn’t take himself or life or anything too seriously. You can’t if you’re in the business. Everybody has a line, though, and Tyler, apparently, has found his.

“Let me ask you a question, Charity,” he says, and he can hear Chloe pitching a fit in his head, the clipped cadence of her words a comfort, because he’s going to catch so much shit for this, it’s nice to be prepared. “If you were interviewing Posey and Crystal about their onscreen romance, what kind of questions would you have for them? You’d throw them a couple of softballs. Maybe ask each of them if the other is a good kisser, and then you’d move on to Scott and Allison and their star-crossed disaster of a relationship.”

“I don’t see how that...”

“You wouldn’t. Of course, you wouldn’t.” Tyler runs hand over his face, quick, bracing, like he can wipe the slick feeling off his skin if he just scrubs at it hard enough. “I, on the other hand, don’t see how _this_ is any different. Is there some unwritten rule that excuses the marginalization of a relationship because it happens to be between two men? Hell, two women? That it’s okay to make it just about sex? To sensationalize it? Or worse yet, turn it into something deviant? No?” The mic slips between his fingers when Tyler tugs it off his collar; the battery pack clipped to his belt is an impossible weight against his palm. He stands anyway, lets all of it drop into the seat he just vacated, listens to the squeal of feedback through the monitors before they cut his audio. “Then I think we’re done here,” he says, and stalks off for the green room to get his bag.

Behind him, the audience explodes.


	3. Chapter 3

Five miles from the studio, the ringing in Tyler’s ears subsides. Knowing him as she does, Chloe waits, lips pressed thin, tapping phone and toes in counter-time. Now, as if she has some sixth sense for the operation of his higher brain functions, only now does she break the strained silence.

“Have you completely lost it?” she says, fussing with the flap of her purse, the pocket where she keeps her cigarettes. She’s never smoked around Tyler before, like she has a sixth sense for that too, but she looks tempted. If ever he deserved consideration less, this is probably the time.

“Maybe,” Tyler answers, hands squeezing tight around his kneecaps. The seam of his jeans cuts into the tender webbing between thumb and forefinger and he rubs at it. With distance, he can’t say for sure what possessed him, only that it felt necessary. Right. More so than letting Charity push him past the point of comfort. “Dylan. I just left him there to...shit.”

That’s the last thing he wanted.

“I’m sorry, what?” Chloe glares at him, clearly eviscerating his cold and bloody corpse in a thousand new and interesting ways in her mind. “Do you have anything else to say?”

“I’m sorry,” he sighs. “I should have kept my cool. I always keep my cool.”

“Damn straight.”

“You love me _because_ I keep my cool. I’m like the least problematic twenty-something on your roster.”

“Maybe not the least, but close.” Her features soften, anger bleeding away. “And I love you no matter what, Tyler. But next time you melt down on me, don’t do it on national television, okay? Bail money I can do. This? This is ninety hours of my life I will never get back.” She glances at her phone again and frowns. “No, more like a hundred, hundred and twenty.”

Chloe kicks her shoes off again, slouching back against sun-warmed leather when she pinches the bridge of her nose and lets her eyes drift closed. In the next second, wits gathered, she reaches for him blindly, the weight of her hand on his shoulder an anchor Tyler didn’t know he needed.

“So what do we do?” he says, and Chloe chuckles, fingers digging in to squeeze before she withdraws, her expression grim, determined.

“I forget sometimes that you’ve literally never been in trouble.”

“Hey!” Tyler fidgets and frowns at her, no heat behind it. “I raise plenty of hell.”

“Not the kind that requires my services. Clearly.”

“All the more reason to elaborate.”

“I’m going to make some calls,” she says, resigned. “You’re going to do some more interviews. Beg forgiveness, make excuses, blame sunspots or dehydration. I don’t care.”

“I’m not sorry for what I said.”

“Didn’t say you had to apologize, necessarily. But you do have to fix this. You’re the only one who can.”

“How?”

“I’m working on it.”

Tyler chews his lip, considering. “Was it really that bad?” he asks, palm pressed to the back of his neck, fingertips working at the knot of tension caught there. “I didn’t curse. Or yell. No matter how much I wanted to. She was being disrespectful, won’t people see that?”

“Left here,” Chloe calls to the driver, adding the “please” as an afterthought. It must be serious if she’s going into the office this late on a Friday. “Look, all of those things are good, to you. You behaved rationally when provoked. Blah, blah, blah. But for me, it’s harder to spin. People will forgive a lot if things are said in the heat of the moment. Hell, they’d forgive you more because they love you. Because you’re young and gorgeous. I think, by and large, the response to the actual content will be positive. Galvanizing, possibly personally problematic. But positive.”

“So why the panic?”

“We need to get ahead of it,” she says, and Tyler can see Chloe preparing herself, already strapping on her proverbial armor. “Before the truth gets distorted by Twitter telephone.”

“Okay, but the show won’t air until tomorrow night.”

“Do you really think anyone in that audience will wait for that to happen? You’re probably already trending, kid.”

“Oh.” It’s true, painfully so. Social media is both boon and burden thanks to how quickly information travels now. But Tyler still doesn’t quite understand. “I...but you said it would be positive.”

“When it comes to the audience members, sure. The vast majority will be beside themselves. They’ll proclaim you a king among men for being so protective. Not only of the show, but the relationship they’re so invested in.” Chloe flashes a quick. wry smile. “There is, however, no such thing as complete consensus.”

It makes sense, of course. Even if Tyler hasn’t read the hate mail, it still exists. “Still not seeing a reason to panic.”

Chloe presses on, ignoring the interruption. “Entertainment reporting, on the other hand, is a brotherhood. A sometimes nasty, competitive dog-eat-dog, family. And you violated the cardinal rule. I can’t guarantee outlets friendly to Charity won’t try to turn this into something it isn’t because you walked out. It’d be fine if you were Russell Crowe, but you’re not.”

“I didn’t even think about that.”

The car begins to slow, winding down the more congested city streets in and around Chloe’s office building, and she gathers herself. Shoes slipped on, hair tossed back then bound. It shaves ten years off her age to see her like this, even with worry lines carved into the corners of her mouth.

“You pay me to think about it,” she says. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

They glide to a smooth stop, nestled against the curb between two spit-shined Mercedes, engine idling down when she reaches for the door to heave it open. Tyler stops her, grabbing for her like a lifeline. He’s so far out of his depth it’s not even funny anymore.

“So, tell me what to do. Obviously, I have no idea.”

“Go home. Have a beer. Maybe call Dylan and apologize for dumping this shitstorm in his lap too. I’ll get ahold of Jeff and Luke, and try to figure out how we can counter if it comes to that.”

“I can do that.”

“Most of all, keep your head down. I’ll be in touch,” she says, and then she’s gone in a cloud of Chanel and the scrape of sensible tweed.

 

* * *

 

By the time Tyler pours his second cup of French Roast late Sunday morning, he absolutely has talked to Chloe. Half a dozen times. Everyone else under the sun called too - Jeff, the MTV publicity team, Ian, Colton, his mother, and even a few tenacious reporters that somehow got his cell number.

Everyone, save one.

Tyler stirs his coffee, centers himself around the sensation of the counter’s edge pressed against his stomach. Mostly, he tries not to think about the three voicemails he left Dylan that have gone unanswered. Sunlight filters in through the patio door, the blinds long since drawn aside. It’s hot for this time of year, not oppressively so, but Tyler can’t bear the thought of sitting by the phone anymore, even if he can do it out there. When he rounds the corner of the island to escape, his cell buzzes to life. Chloe’s face smiles up at him, stylish horn-rimmed glasses barely clinging to the tip of her nose, and he hesitates. Instinct tells him to pick-up, that putting off dealing with whatever she’s calling about will make it worse. Honestly though, there’s only so much bad news a person can take.

He needs space. Tyler skims his shirt off slowly, breathing deep, revelling in the pull of muscle against his ribcage on the inhale. By the time he pads across the length of tile and out onto his tiny sun-bleached patio, he’s not thinking about much of anything at all. The feet of the lounge chair scrape against clumps of seaweed and broken pieces of shell, paint worn through to bare metal from too many treks down the beach and back. Laziness keeps him from carrying it out, and the sand bakes up through the soles of his feet as Tyler plods out to the water’s edge, dragging the chair behind him.

Out here he can breathe, and if he’s really lucky, ignore the hell out of the last few days. It works in theory. But thoughts are slippery and stubborn, and for every one Tyler forces down, a hundred others surface, clamoring for attention.

The un-apology tour he’ll embark on bright and early tomorrow morning.

Voicemails unanswered.

That damning promo Charity ran Friday night.

But most of all, the set of Dylan’s jaw, the look in Dylan’s eyes as he watched Tyler walk out on the interview.

Of the many things he should regret about the past three days, the last is the only one he does. With distance, Tyler can see how he ended up where he ended up with Charity, and why. Ill-advised as it may have been, every word of his impromptu tirade still rings with absolute truth, still seems necessary. Even now. Even after spending every waking moment since then trying to figure out a way to fix it. Even after watching the edit Charity aired, forcing himself to sit through the rest of the fiasco, enduring Dylan’s obvious discomfort as he stood his ground against her onslaught alone.

Even now, Tyler believes he was in the right.

He throws himself at the lounge chair, wide bands of hot vinyl bowing as they take his weight. Without the double panes of glass between him and the sun, the brightness blinds him and Tyler slams his sunglasses home, the world washing out to amber before he closes his eyes against it. Before long, the heat and the sound of lazy waves lapping at the shoreline begin to work their magic. Sweat beads at his hairline, gathering in the usual valleys, but he doesn’t care, doesn’t want to trudge out into the ocean to wash it away, and he certainly doesn’t want to brave going back inside.

Not yet.

“I see how it is.”

A shadow skirts across his face, pink and amber going grey and back again. Tyler squeezes his eyes shut tighter, waiting for the sparks, because he’d know that voice anywhere.

“I called,” Tyler says. “More than once.”

Dylan shoves his legs out of the way, flops into the space they leave behind. “Yeah. I was a little busy. And a lot pissed. Or the other way around. I can’t remember.”

“Still pissed?” It takes everything Tyler has not to look, but then there’s no telling what might greet him if he did. Not until he gets a better lay of the land.

“Haven’t decided yet.”

The chair vibrates, Dylan plucking at the bands, letting them snap back. He doesn’t feel pissed. Tired maybe, disappointed. But not pissed.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler says, like words can fix the mess he made. “I didn’t mean for you to get caught up in this. Shit man, I didn’t even mean for me to.”

“I know, Ty.”

“She just kept going. Pushing and digging, treating us like meat, treating _you_ like meat and I couldn’t...”

“I was there, dude. Trust me, I get it.”

“I shouldn’t have walked out on you.” Tyler says, quiet and careful, and he dares to look finally, to study Dylan’s profile against the wide wash of blue, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows and then swallows again.

“No.” Dylan turns then, meeting Tyler’s gaze for a second before his eyes dart down and away. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Let me fix it. I’ll fix it if you just tell me how.”

Dylan sighs, resettling himself until he’s perched cross legged on the very end of the lounge, knees brushing knees, denim pushing the hair back on Tyler’s legs in a way that almost tickles. Stalling is an artform with which Dylan’s well-acquainted, and he hooks the toe of his shoe beneath one of the bands, rubbing it there until the vinyl squeaks in protest.

“I appreciate what you said,” Dylan mutters, almost absently. His fingers work at a pull in his jeans, worrying the little loop into a bigger one until the thread snaps. “Don’t think I don’t,” he continues. “I wish there were more like you in the world, Hoechlin. You know that.”

“I totally don’t deserve--”

“Not done.”

Tyler presses his lips together, tasting the salt of the sea and his own sweat, and he watches the restless shift of Dylan’s shoulders as he rolls them back. From this angle he looks both incredibly young and tired. He may have learned his lesson about over-booking, but he’s still burning the candle at four different ends. As soon as they wrap the back half of the season, he’s leaving for upstate New York to film a David O. Russell flick. It’s only a supporting role, but Tyler kind of wants to drag Dylan inside and lock him in the guest bedroom until the dumbass gets some actual rest anyway.

“Look, it’s different for me.”

“Jeff said as much.”

“Still not done.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s different for me, because if someone really wanted to go poking, they’d find things. Things I’m not ready to talk about publicly yet.” His gaze swings up, like it might meet Tyler’s, but swoops over his shoulder instead. Tyler wishes he knew why, because they’ve talked about this before. He and Posey were Dylan’s dry run back in the day. “It’s not that I’m ashamed. You know that. Shame and I have only a passing acquaintance.”

A smile twists its way across Tyler’s mouth, a reflex he wouldn’t dream of denying even if he could. Sometimes Dylan’s perception of self skips off-kilter, but Tyler’s in no place to remind him right now. Instead, he listens, pushes down the urge to reach out and put hands on Dylan, and even that he can’t explain, because they touch each other all the time. Less so, now. After.

“Anyway. I’m also pretty private, as you know. I don’t like photogs up in my bidness any more than they have to be. I was cool dealing with Charity not because she was right to ask what she was asking, but because it meant not answering those other questions.”

Dylan does lock on eventually, big brown eyes eating up half of his face, the left lower lid twitching ever so slightly. The set of his chin changes, jaw working as he chews on the words he’s trying to decide whether to spit out, and Tyler waits, listening to the breeze sweep down the beach.

“Be that as it may,” he says, finally. “You were right. It’s selfish of me to be pissed, I know that. What you said needed saying, regardless of how it might compromise the integrity of my bubble.”

“Are you done?”

“I think so?” Dylan shifts and squints, straightening up to poke at his stomach, thump a palm against his chest before he grunts, nods. “Yep. Caring and sharing hour is officially over. Please return your seatbacks and tray tables to the full upright and locked position. We hope you enjoyed your time with Weird and Uncomfortable Air. Watch the first step, it’s a doozy.”

Tyler laughs for what feels like the first time in days, and shoves Dylan off the end of his chair. It’s probably a dick move. Okay, definitely a dick move. But the way Dylan’s arms windmill when he’s thrown off balance will never not be funny. Tyler tumbles after, taking an impressive hit to the sternum and almost a hip to the groin, and Dylan fights, knuckles nudging between ribs as he spews a string of nonsense and laughter amongst theatrically girlish squeals. There’s sand in Tyler’s mouth, in his hair, and a clump of something he doesn’t want to investigate stuck to his leg, but they’re okay and that’s all that really matters.

Once Tyler gets him pinned, Dylan sags, flushed and gusting hot, minty breath up into his face.

“This is how you reward my benevolence? By squashing me until I am dead?”

“Dude, you’re a cockroach. Nuclear winter comes it’ll be you, the ugly buggy armies and a stockpile of Twinkies. Don’t kid yourself.”

Dylan smiles up at him, gaze restless, trying desperately to get an elbow angled for leverage. “Still,” he mutters, chest heaving. “Gratitude is a thing, right? Usually offered in response to some, oh I don’t know, gigantic get-out-of-the-doggiest-of-doghouses card?“

Grin faltering, Tyler stares down at Dylan, fingers flexing around the knobby bones in his wrists, and Dylan squirms, makes a frustrated noise as his head rolls sideways, tongue darting out across his lips. “Only you would try to apologize to me for my asshole behavior,” Tyler says, more serious than he probably should be considering the point was to try and lighten the mood.

“I could punish instead,” Dylan grits out, struggling to work his heel into position so he can push an advantage, but the sand gives way, his knee stabbing Tyler’s hip. “For some reason I’m oddly inspired.”

“You have every right to.” While he still has at least twenty pounds of solid muscle on Dylan, Dylan’s wily, fights dirty, and generally doesn’t stay down for long. But at Tyler’s words, Dylan goes boneless again, leg flopping to the beach with a soft whump.

“Ty.”

Battle won, Tyler rolls up and over, kicking out at the lounge chair so he can sprawl as wide as he wants, back to beach, slotting his sunglasses into place again when unfiltered sunlight hits his face. Jet tails streak across the sky turning it to patchwork, soft at the edges, and Tyler apparently can’t force himself to leave well enough alone.

“Seriously, you should be pissed.”

“Am. Was. Whatever.” Dylan coughs, flinging his arm sideways until his fist connects with Tyler’s bicep. “Definitely was,” he adds, shifting up onto his side, chin propped against palm, sneaker nudging at the meat of Tyler’s thigh. “So much internalized rage when you walked out, you don’t even know, man. You don’t _do_ shit like that.” He pauses, laughs a weird little laugh that sounds like he’s choking. “But then I watched the footage back.”

“What does that have to do with anything?

“You.”

“Okay, I don’t really...” Tyler gestures, helpless, palms turned skyward and cheek pressed to sand. Dylan just rolls his eyes.

“You’ve never been able to see yourself. Not really. You were like, totally impassioned,” Dylan says, reaching out to brush a piece of dried seaweed off Tyler’s chest. His expression morphs wildly, cycling through six options before it settles soft, eyes wide and liquid when he snatches his hand back and continues. “Batshit, maybe. But protective of them and us, and you were saying all these things I’ve thought for ages. No filters.”

“Oh.”

Tyler loses eye contact when Dylan levers himself up, chin hooked over the bend of a knee, arms wrapped tight around his shins. His jeans are dusted with sand, and they glitter in the sunlight. “So, I can forgive you for running,” he says, chewing on his lip again. “Because.”

“Because?” Tyler prompts.

“Because I need to,” Dylan answers, pensive, and he looks down, lips shaped in a way that stirs an unexpected storm in Tyler’s stomach, heart fluttering wildly against his ribcage. It lasts scant seconds before Dylan’s gaze skates away again, skipping across the crests of the lazy, rolling waves kissing the shore, his eyes narrowed.

It feels like a Moment. They’ve had them before, early in the morning or so late at night it might as well be, when defenses slip or work has rubbed them raw. Dylan is sharp instead of sleepy though, his posture guarded for all the forgiveness he’s offering and Tyler finds he doesn’t have a ready remedy filed away in his lengthy Dylan lexicon.

So he improvises, reaches out to wrap a hand around Dylan’s ankle, thumbing at the tender patch of skin drawn tight behind the bone, and simply asks. “What’s up?”

Dylan shrugs and says, “Nothing,” clearly lying through his teeth. Tyler could call him on it, maybe would call him on it any other day. Instead, he scoots closer, tugging at Dylan’s fingers where they dangle, waiting. “I’m mad at myself,” Dylan says, eventually. Tyler’s brow quirks then furrows all on its own. “I mean. If anyone should be championing fair treatment for Stiles and Derek, it should be me.”

“Why’s that?”

A soft, humorless chuckle finds its way into the air between them, and Dylan wriggles his fingers. Tyler hangs on. “Has the sun finally baked your last braincell?”

“For the sake of argument, let’s pretend it did.”

“Jesus, Hoechlin.” Dylan spits his name, turns it into an expletive, yanking his hand away with enough force he knocks the hell out of his funny bone on the corner of Tyler’s battered chaise. “You aren’t a dumbass.”

“Not last I checked,” Tyler says, rolling himself back up to sit, close but not touching. “Clearly though, there’s something I’m not getting.”

Dylan glares at him for the length of a breath, then huffs, frustrated. “Because I also like boys, okay? Stiles is my people. Hell, I guess Derek is my people since he apparently digs the boobies too.”

Misplaced guilt, Tyler can deal with. Excels at even. Especially considering he never intended to do what he did. Honestly, Dylan’s premeditating the hell out of something that happened mostly without his consent. Truth won’t help here though. Might actually hurt.

“It’s your job now to take a stand for the sake of bisexuals everywhere?”

“Yes...” Dylan says, before adding a quiet “And no.”

“So why feel obligated?”

“Because someone should be.”

“And?”

“I’m young and I have a voice most people will never have.”

“And?”

“If I wasn’t such a coward, I could make a difference.”

Tyler risks leaning forward, bare knee pressed to the sand-encrusted side of Dylan’s calf, and Dylan looks at him for real this time. Not fleeting or shuttered, but a little lost, a little scared, and a lot confused.

“This is not on you, Dylan,” he says. “You’re brave, every day. You always have been. From the first time you sat down to tell me and Posey, to throwing yourself a coming out party and unironically ordering a penis cake to sit right alongside the one that essentially amounted to a gigantic pair of tits.”

Dylan snorts, but Tyler takes it as a compliment that he’s unwinding, pushing back against the pressure of his knee, head tilted, considering.

“No one gets to define you but you, right? And wanting to live your own life sans microscope is not cowardice. It’s a choice. One you can make when you’re ready. Or not.”

“But...”

Frustrated himself, Tyler acts on instinct, fingers pinched around the purse of Dylan’s mouth before he’s given his arm permission to move. “No,” he says. “No buts. Feel what you want. Or don’t feel anything at all, but please don’t let my borderline stupidity be the reason you question yourself. Okay?”

Dylan’s lips twitch, corners quirking, and Tyler hangs on for the hell of it, because Dylan may well be ridiculous, but he’s also worth it. Eventually, Dylan nods and Tyler turns him loose. From there, it’s easy to stand, unfolding enough to dust himself off before he offers Dylan a hand.

“Now, why don’t we go get shitfaced and forget we ever had this conversation?”

Beaming, Dylan grabs for him, righting himself by way of Tyler’s forearms with a completely unnecessary use of force. But even that’s okay because once he’s all the way up, Dylan knocks his shoulder against Tyler’s and says, “That sounds like the best idea I’ve heard all day.”


	4. Chapter 4

“So that was a disaster.”

At the other end of his trailer, the door slams shut on a wave of cooler evening air. Heels clack against the cheap linoleum, drawing steadily closer. Holland, it has to be.

Tyler stretches and pulls the sheet pooled around his waist up over his head. “Go away,” he groans. “I have an hour until call.”

Even through his navy blue cocoon, Holland’s perfume wafts with her, sweet and slightly musky. “I don’t think so,” she says, plopping down on the bed at his back, scooting into the bend of his knees. “Everyone else may be content to let you pretend nothing happened, but I’m not everyone.”

“Clearly.”

Being back on set today has been weird. No one so much as asked about the Charity incident on his way in, and he’s kind of glad to finally have confirmation he didn’t dream the whole damn thing.

“Hoechlin.” Her hand falls at his hip, the weight of it almost comforting until her fingers dig into the fleece and tug. Static sparks between his hair and the blanket, his T-shirt clinging to the fleece.

“Holland,” he mutters, blinking up at the halo of her hair before he gives up and throws an arm across his eyes. “Can’t I just do my penance in peace?”

“Yeah, you’re suffering alright,” she deadpans, and the mattress shimmies when she resettles, draping herself across his legs, her chin sharper and far more insistent than necessary.

“I am. Cruel and unusual punishment.” Tyler twists, sheet pulling tight around his knees, and she moves with him, slinking up and stretching out until they’re squashed together side-by-side, shoulders touching. The curve of her lips is a promise Tyler would rather leave alone, but Holland bats her eyelashes. “I know that look,” he murmurs. “And just - no.”

“I love how you’re still under the impression you get to say no to me.” Sometimes, Holland channels Lydia Martin instead of the other way around. Sometimes, this tiny person and her gigantic brain are terrifying. Sometimes.

The bed gives beside him, and Tyler doesn’t need to look to know Holland kicked her heels off. They hit the floor of the trailer, two thunks followed by ice cold toes against his calf. Overhead, the sad window unit rattles to life, wheezing wetly before going silent again, fans spinning on stale air. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he says, eventually, swinging a smile at her that feels a little light on the authenticity.

Holland laughs, hair tumbling out of the clip she bound it with to scatter against Tyler’s spare pillow. His ribs ache inexplicably, lungs screaming for air he can’t seem to give them. There’d been a time, very early on, he thought ‘maybe’ with Holland, but they ended up here instead. Here being the completely platonic, often annoying land of pseudo-siblinghood where Holland seems to think she always knows what’s best.

“That hot mess is _totally_ worth talking about,” she says, the corner of her mouth twitching.

“I screwed up.” Tyler frowns around the words, hearing the truth in them. No matter what he says or how strongly he believes, walking out on After Dark was the wrong decision.

Holland edges closer, trading the pillow for Tyler’s shoulder, her feet shoved in the space behind his knees. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

A wayward hair tickles the underside of his chin and he rubs it away. “Not fooling anyone, Holl. I can hear the ‘but’ coming a mile away.“

“But that’s not what’s worth discussing.”

“Kinda done with discussion for the day.” Tyler says, tucking the offending strand behind her ear, hoping to stave off whatever interrogation she has planned. “Just want to take a couple body hits, maybe do a few backflips, hit some stuff. I spent the entire morning atoning for my perceived sins and I’m _tired_.”

“Well, what did they ask you about? You can at least tell me that.” Holland’s fingers climb the ladder of his ribs, nudging at each one with a dangerous smile.

“The usual. The show. The kiss. My reasons.”

“Not Dylan?”

Tyler sighs, turning his head to catch Holland’s gaze, her green eyes muddy but twinkling the way they always do when she gets her way. How he got strong-armed into this conversation, Tyler couldn’t begin to say. Or, he could, but that would involve admitting he has a soft spot for Holland and she doesn’t need more ammunition than she already has. “Why would they ask about Dylan?”

“Did you even watch the interview?” she asks, a plaintive edge to her voice that wasn’t there thirty seconds ago.

“Yes, and?”

Her eyes flare and she blinks half a dozen times in quick succession, slapping a palm against his chest to shove herself up. Tyler grunts, and Holland simply stares. “You really don’t see it.” She makes a familiar frustrated noise, leaning closer. “Ty, honey, still?”

Those words delivered with that patronizing tone are enough to drive him up, blanket tangling between his ankles, shoulder pressed to the wood-paneled wall stationed way too close to the bed. “We’re not talking about this,” he says, and side steps out into the slightly more spacious main room, listening to Holland scramble and pad out behind him, still barefoot.

She makes a grab for his shoulder, but Tyler shakes her off, snagging the hoodie he slung across the end of the couch earlier and pulling it on. Even though it’s still too warm for it, the pockets are deep and it feels good to curl his fingers into them. “For your own good,” she says, adamant. “We need to talk about this.”

Along his spine, the muscles pull tight, and Tyler ratchets his shoulders back to accommodate. There’s a stain on his couch, faint pink against the beige. Been there going on three years now, the bastard lovechild of Hawaiian Punch and Tyler’s failure to adequately observe Dylan’s preferred storytelling radius. He remembers the blue streak Dylan cursed, the split second of his stricken expression until his cheeks dimpled with laughter. Really, Tyler should have flipped the cushion ages ago or had it replaced. But he hasn’t.

“I don’t have a crush on Dylan,” he says, uncertain as ever about who he’s trying to convince.

It’s Holland that answers, though, her “Yes, dumbass, you _do_ ” fond and exasperated but somehow infinitely patient. Back still turned, Tyler hears her creep quietly close, can feel the heat of her even though she’s not touching. Not yet.

“Even if I did--” And he’s not ready to admit he does, because he doesn’t. “It’s called character bleed, Holl. You of all people should know.”

“Friends don’t look at friends like they hung the moon, Hoechlin.”

Tyler doesn’t. Or doesn’t mean to, at the very least. Admiration makes his face do things he never consciously agreed to. His eyes twinkle. His grin goes a little too wide and doofy. Sometimes his nose scrunches up with it, crinkles cutting premature crows feet at the corners of his eyes. But he doesn’t look at Dylan like anything, really. Not on purpose.

“I don’t...” he sputters gamely, plucking at a clump of lint stuck in the deep corner of his pocket, and when Tyler turns, he hopes his face doesn’t rebel again.

“You do. Always have. Your complete lack of anything that resembles subtlety or guile astounds me. You’re lucky you’re hot as Hades. That’s the only possible way you survived high school.” Holland sighs and loops her arms around his waist, squeezing. Her cheek finds a home against his chest and Tyler finds he’s grateful for the unspoken comfort. “I adore Colton,” she says. “Always will. But I don’t sit next to him in interviews doing my best impression of a besotted newlywed unless we’re trying to screw with someone. If this is anything, it’s the polar opposite of bleed, babe. Why do you think you ended up doing interviews about this shit in the first place?”

“Holl, seriously.” Again, Tyler pulls away, fingers locked around the curves of her shoulders to keep her back. So she can see his face. So she knows he means it. “Drop it. Please?”

“Give me one good reason.” Holland pushes past him to curl up in the unblemished corner of his couch, dragging another of his discarded sweatshirts into her lap.

“Lizzie,” Tyler says, heaving a deep, bracing breath.

“Who?”

Apparently, they’re going to do this. Tyler gives up on the dream of sleep, roots around in his fridge for a protein shake instead. Strawberry cream, like Liz’s shampoo. The memories come, they always do. He spent that spring subletting in the Garden District, and he can still smell the night blooming jasmine, hear the trumpets sounding at two o’clock in the morning, the distant, constant buzz of drunk tourists on Bourbon Street, can almost taste the café au lait he treated himself to every Saturday morning. Most of all, he can still see the sly grin she flashed at him all the time, how her face came alive when they walked the market together, how it never failed to twist his guts into knots.

“Harnois.”

“Can we work on the complete sentences, please? Fievel’s going to the groomer in the morning and I get charged twenty-five bucks if I’m late.” Holland smiles up at him, expectant, and Tyler shrugs, settles in the opposite corner of the couch, downing at least half of his shake in one long swallow.

“I’m prone to inventing entanglements.”

“Crushes.”

Tyler nods, because yes, that’s what it was back then, even if he couldn’t see it at the time. “I thought there was something,” he says, taking another swig of his shake. “Hell, I wished there was something. She was fearless.” He chuckles, can’t help himself. “And hilarious.”

“So?”

“She was also seriously involved with some French director.”

“What does that have to do with Dylan?”

There’s an elephant in the room they aren’t acknowledging. Tyler refuses to, has refused to since Holland first pulled him into a quiet corner after Comic-Con and dressed him down without saying a word. Later, she’d claimed intuition and tried to coerce him into coming clean. They never had the awkward conversation about orientation, but only because Holland blew right by it. Tyler doesn’t really want to know what else she thinks she knows about him.

“We’re friends.” he says. “Friends who are friendly. Whatever you think you see is just Hale-related feedback. It happens. To me, it seems to happen a lot.”

Holland reaches out for him, fists closing on empty air. “I feel like I should be shaking you right now, but I respect you too much for that.” Her brows tilt together, and she frowns at him for a long moment before slumping back against the cushions.

“Interrogation over? Can I sleep?” A quick glance at the clock on the microwave tells Tyler he has forty minutes to kill. If Holland lets him, he can still manage to sneak in a power nap. “I’ve been up since six and I’ve got about three days’ worth of stunt work to do tonight.“

“Um, no. Big, fat liars don’t deserve naps, Hoechlin.

“Who am I lying to again?”

“Yourself, you ginormous idiot. And right now, me.” Holland squares her chin, thrusting it at him like he’s the one that picked a fight, and Tyler buries his face in his hands to keep from screaming. “You’re so gone on him you defended his honor on national television. Not only that, but you defended the honor of the fictional character he _portrays_. I thought you were going to throw down and challenge that Clark bitch to a duel.”

“That’s not what it was,” Tyler protests, but even he questions, his recollection of that afternoon tainted and suspect. The last of his shake goes down lukewarm, coating his throat and he pushes himself back up, the bottle rattling against the bottom of his trash can.

“Lies you tell yourself to make things easier are still just lies, babe.“

He keeps his back to her, his eyes on the square of scuffed linoleum between his shoes and says, quietly, “I meant every word.”

“I don’t doubt that. But you didn’t _say_ everything. You didn’t have to.”

His trailer door flies open again, and for half a second Tyler wants to hightail it back into the bedroom and shut the door until everyone gets the hell out of his business. But there’s no running from this. Holland has made that abundantly clear. Another blast of cool air curls in on the heels of the second person tonight who’s invaded his space without bothering to knock, and Tyler laughs helplessly.

“Tell him, Ian,” Holland says, and Tyler watches her stomp past him to collect her shoes, only to drop them at the end of the couch and resettle herself there, heels propped against Ian’s thigh. “Tell him he’s being impossibly dense.”

“About what?” Ian’s gaze darts back and forth, trying to assess the balance of power, but he’s not Peter and gives up quickly, throwing his arm across the back of Tyler’s couch.

Holland says, “Dylan” at the same time Tyler says, “No.” Ian chuckles at them both, head tilted, dimples flashing, and it sounds like disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Are we still pretending that’s a secret? I mean, Tyler has all but presented his still-beating heart in a box. Personally, I’d go with a more obvious part of the anatomy, but our dear, sweet Hoechlin has always been kind of a hopeless romantic.”

Vindicated, Holland stares him down, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. Tyler levels the most withering glare he can conjure at her before finally making his escape, slamming his way out into the night.

 

* * *

 

 _Welcome to the Jungle_ wakes him, soaring guitar riffs starling him from slumber so violently Tyler fumbles his phone twice, narrowly rescuing it from death by hardwood just as the drumline kicks in.

A grunt is the best he can do right now, considering he’s only been home five hours. Not that his brother has ever been one to stand on ceremony.

“So bro, when’s the wedding?”

A chuckle drifts down the line in the wake of the question. Tyler squints against the morning rays pounding into his bedroom and curses himself for not pulling the blackout curtains before he laid down.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he mutters, groggy and aching from the punishment he put his body through the night before. “And I want to be asleep more than I want to figure it out.”

“Dude, are you still in bed?” Tanner at least sounds apologetic, even if he doesn’t offer to let Tyler go. “My bad. It’s almost ten.”

“I’m aware.” Tyler yawns and sighs, curling onto his side so he can tug the blankets up over his head. Better, definitely better. “We wrapped at four,” he mumbles. “Four-ish.”

“When do you have to be back?”

“Not until three, so unless this is urgent…” People keep screwing with his sleep cycle. It’s beginning to feel like a conspiracy.

“Nah,” Tanner drawls, obviously grinning at the phone. Tyler grits his teeth. “I can be patient. I’d rather give you shit about your boyfriend when you’re coherent enough to retaliate. Get some rest.”

“Boyfriend? I don’t…” Maybe Tyler’s still fuzzy around the edges and not quite processing, but this entire conversation is making less sense the longer he talks. “ _What_?”

Plastic rustles through the receiver, followed by the sound of Tanner gulping, swallowing. “I finally watched the infamous After Dark appearance this morning.” he says, finally. “You’ve got one impressive hard-on for O’Brien, T. It’s, like, legendary.”

The words land exactly as Tanner intended, and Tyler shoves himself up, sleep and aggressively cheerful sunlight be damned. “I’m not,” he sighs. “I don’t. Why is everyone trying to convince me…” His vision swims for a second, and Tyler props his elbows against his knees, fingertips pressed to his eyelids. “Ugh, it’s too early for this.”

“So Mom called already?” Since they were kids, Tanner has always had this uncanny ability for using feigned innocence to his advantage, usually to be a little shit. Tyler chalks it up to him being the baby.

“Mom?”

“Yeah. Last night at dinner she asked me if there was anything she needed to know.” Tanner pauses, lets the silence linger in a way that’s probably supposed to be significant. To Tyler, it just seems unnecessarily dramatic. “Specifically something I knew that she didn’t.”

No one knows. Not Tanner. Not his mother. If a serious something ever happened with a guy, then it would be worth discussing. The thing with Dylan is no more serious than it is real. They’re friends. That’s all.

“About what?” he asks, then braces himself for the answer.

Tanner barks a laugh. “Don’t be dense, Ty. She watched the interview too.”

“Of course she did,” Tyler grumbles. After the promos came out, he urged her not to, thinking it would only upset her. Guilt is all Tyler ever got out of it. Once was enough.

“More importantly, she also thinks you’ve got a thing for the kid. At least I’m not crazy.”

“He’s not a kid. Or a thing.” Tyler scrubs a hand across his face, eyeing the dent Dylan put in his wall with a baseball bat a couple of months back. Realistically, he should be pissed. Dylan promised to patch it and hasn’t. But Tyler has only ever felt blessed by the remnants of Dylan’s passage through his life, not angry. “He’s just Dylan,” Tyler says, more uncertain than ever of who he’s trying to convince.

“Dude, not to be the bearer of truths you’re clearly repressing, but you haven’t gotten that wrapped around the axle about someone being mistreated since you decked Danny Reynolds junior year.” Tyler recalls the incident vividly, squeezing his fist closed with the memory of aching knuckles. He very nearly broke his thumb on Reynolds’ jaw. “I do believe he was casting some pretty heinous aspersions on your lady love at the time.”

“It’s not like that.” Except that maybe it is.

Tanner sighs, suddenly serious. “Sounds like you’re not so sure. But hey, whatever’s clever, my man. If you’re sticking to your story, I’ll support you. Just as long as you know it wouldn’t be the end of the world if it _was_ like that.”

Tyler has no idea what to say. So he doesn’t. He breathes into the phone and digs his toes into the rug and does pretty much anything he can to keep himself from saying anything. Mostly because he doesn’t trust his sleep-deprived brain to string words into sentences that will come close to expressing how much it means to him. Even in the hypothetical.

Tanner eventually breaks the protracted silence. “Anyway, T,” he says. “I’ll let you get back to it. You owe me a beer.”

“For what?” Tyler asks, tension leaching from his shoulders as he slumps back against the bed, legs dangling over the edge.

“For running interference with Mom, obviously. Figured you wouldn’t want to have this conversation again today.”

“Thanks, Squirt.”

“Just for that, two beers. And a bucket of wings.” Tanner’s smiling again, Tyler can hear it in his voice.

“Friday.” Tyler says. “It’s a date.”

For a long time after Tanner hangs up, Tyler simply lays still, phone propped loosely between his ear and shoulder. He makes no move to crawl back under the blankets, and he’s not even fighting the urge to drift back to sleep. Really, truly, he’s staring at the ceiling, tracing the peaks and valleys of texture and the little clump of cobwebs caught around the vent. Avoiding.

When he can’t anymore, when the press of new knowledge sits too heavy on his chest for him to bear, Tyler gets up and pads into the kitchen for a bottle of water, then the living room for the DVR.

It’s half a miracle After Dark is still there, lost between ball games and episodes of television Tyler actually cares about. He almost deleted it that first time, but something stayed his hand.

Now, with a little time and distance between him and the mockery Charity made of them, maybe he can see what everyone else does.

Tyler flicks on the captions because he can’t stand the sound of her voice.

And yeah, he leans a little too close. Looks at Dylan maybe a little too long. With the sound off, there’s body language Tyler picks up on, entire conversations they had without saying a word. Gestures he doesn’t remember surrendering to in the moment. And in it, he can understand why people might think they’re intimate. Because he mirrors Dylan. Dylan mirrors him. Even with Charity prodding them to her own twisted tune, he and Dylan dance with each other, around each other. Too dialed in to do anything else.

But they’ve always been like that. From the very first interviews they sat through together, it’s never been any different.

Until the turn, that is.

Tyler sees the rage banked behind his eyes, when he sweeps his mic pack off and throws it at the chair, the plea in Dylan’s as Dylan watches him go. If not for the wave of guilt slowly crushing him the last time he watched, Tyler might have seen it before.

Not only does he look at Dylan ‘that way’, but Dylan is looking back.

And maybe, just maybe, everyone else is right.

 

* * *

 

After a week spent doing damage control, Chloe sounds less like she wants to kill him when he answers her calls. Optimism is a hard habit to break, and Tyler’s spent so long operating with it as his baseline, cynicism seems wholly antithetical. So in spite all the crow he’s had to eat the past ten days, Tyler believes, truly, he’ll come out the other side. The public’s memory is short and if he keeps his head down, behaves graciously, his career and image will be safe.

And really, he wants to blow off some steam.

Going out in LA presents a host of challenges Atlanta never did. Those first two years, most of their adventures in inebriation began and ended at the apartment. If they did venture out, they kept to bowling alleys and pool halls, the occasional restaurant bar. Fewer questions that way, the likelihood of getting busted for underage drinking more remote. Besides, compared to LA the nightlife in Atlanta was pretty tame. It wasn’t the same.

Here, there are a thousand and one places to drink, get high, get noticed, dance until you pass out and possibly get accosted by paparazzi. While that’s not exactly Tyler’s scene, not all the time anyway, there are those among them still enjoying the blush of newfound freedom that comes with being legal. So instead of sidling his way into an anonymous booth at Finn McCool’s to tie one on in relative peace and quiet, he’s looking for a parking spot around the corner from a pawn shop and an upscale adult boutique. Because, above all else, Tyler refuses to be the one to break tradition.

Posey chose the place tonight, and as Tyler picks his way through the parking lot, he realizes they don’t always give the guy the credit he deserves. Bass thumps out across the asphalt, rolling low and slow, and that means dubstep instead synthpop or tech or something more manic. It’s compromise. One Tyler appreciates. When he rounds the end of the building, cement giving way to weed-riddled cobblestone, Tyler recognizes landmarks. The donut shop down the block. The tattoo parlor on the other side of the street. He’s been here before, years ago, and memory supplies a floor plan along with the knowledge that if the club hasn’t been fully renovated, there’s a large lounge to the right of the double-sided bar, one insulated from the club at large. The thought actually makes him smile.

“ _Hoechlin!_ ”

Sneakers slap pavement behind him, and Tyler turns toward them in time to catch Posey when he launches himself. He takes the added weight easily, Posey’s arm wrapped around his neck, fingers digging into his shoulder, legs catching at his knees. Beneath the sharp scent of deodorant and Stolichnaya, Posey smells of Tide and sunblock. Posey laughs, smiles, and bites at Tyler’s bicep through his t-shirt before letting go, falling into step beside him.

“Glad you came, man. Didn’t know if you would.”

Posey nods to the bouncer as they push inside. Through the second set of doors, the music hits them, a wall of sound throbbing at his eardrums that saves Tyler from trying to come up with an answer. Everyone has done a bang-up job of not talking about the Charity thing. Well, everyone except Holland. That’s the only reason he can come up with for why he might have opted out of the compulsory cast night, and Tyler tugs the brim of his cap, shoves his glasses more firmly into place so he can pretend he’s not thinking about it. The entire point of being here is not _thinking_ about it.

When Tyler hooks a hand around his elbow, Posey allows himself to be led into the lounge. The decor has changed, darker and more seductive, but the cinderblock wall between it and the dance floor kicks the volume from a twelve down to a two. Enough to have an actual conversation.

“Why wouldn’t I come?” he asks, leaning close to make sure he’s heard.

Posey pulls a face, mouth going lopsided around his words. “You know. Because of the thing. You’ve been weird this week, dude.” He claps Tyler on the shoulder then starts to ease back and away. “I totally get it,” he says, teeth flashing white in the blacklights. “Still glad you showed.”

It’s early by LA standards, so there are more than enough tables to go around. Tyler eyes a big round booth in the corner, eager to stake a claim. They’ll need one before the night’s up. Even Dylan, the Energizer Bunny of club-goers when he decides to let loose, will need a place to crash for a few minutes and drink a bottle of water away from the crowd. Posey shuffles, plucking at the tail of his shirt like he’s torn, but eventually says, “I’m gonna go see if anyone else is here yet,” and Tyler waves him off, weaving through the high-tops to mark their territory for the evening.

Why anyone would choose to upholster anything in purple leather is beyond him, but since that one unfortunate fact does nothing to compromise the comfort, Tyler’s willing to let it slide. He stares at the small circle of light glowing up from the center of the glass tabletop for a little too long, startling when another familiar voice rises above the humming bass line.

“This seat taken?”

“Hell no, JR. Never for you, my man.” Tyler eyes the tumbler of scotch clutched in JR’s fist with longing and resolves to flag down a member of the staff post haste. The bar seems very far away right now.

JR slides in opposite Tyler, leaning forward to tap at the table. “How are you holding up?” he asks, looking for all the world like the concerned father figure he plays. Such over-the-top solemnity tickles Tyler at the best of times and coming from JR it’s borderline ridiculous. Tyler’s ribs ache with the bark of involuntary laughter, but at the very least it gives him reason to smile.

“I don’t even want to go there,” Tyler says, leaning back to stretch out, hook his elbow over the seat, fingers dangling. “It’s been a strange ride. Never spent so much time explaining myself.”

“These things happen.”

“Not to me,” he says, flagging down the petite brunette who’s moving among the tables with a tray. Awkward sign language aside, Tyler thinks she gets the picture when he points at JR’s glass and holds up two fingers, because she nods.

“Even to you, Tyler.” JR takes a long pull from his glass, throat working slow as the amber liquid disappears. “You’re just more adept at avoiding them. Everyone puts their foot in their mouth at some point, even you.”

“I didn’t--”

Grinning, JR cuts him off, hand raised in surrender. “I saw the show, kid. The only thing you did that I wouldn’t have done myself is leave.”

“Chloe still thinks I should apologize. She understands why I don’t want to, but the ‘court of public opinion doesn’t give a shit’ according to her.”

“Fuck that,” JR spits the words vehemently just as the waitress, Katie according to her nametag, drops off their round. Tyler casts her a sheepish smile she shrugs off before slipping away. “The only person you should have to apologize to is Dylan and I’m sure you already have.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then this will blow over. Don’t think so much. Explain, but don’t apologize for something you’re not sorry for. You’re a lot of things, Tyler, and fake isn’t one of them.”

Tyler covers a grin with his hand, scraping at the stubble gone to seed on his upper lip. Compliments get to him, always have, and Tyler doesn’t know what to do with it except change the subject. “So, how’s the family?”

Before JR can answer, Posey bounces up to the booth and slides in next to Tyler, nudging him over with a shoulder and that indomitable will of his. “What are you, made out of lead? Make some room, my man. We have arrived.”

Sure enough, Dylan’s riding Posey’s wake, his arm looped around Holland’s neck in a way that skirts the line of friendly manhandling. Dan and Crystal are pulling up the rear, wrapped up in each other now that they’ve finally reconciled and Crystal leaning to whisper something in Jill’s ear. Ian has a date. With Melissa shooting a guest spot on another show, Keahu in San Diego and Linden in Atlanta for the weekend, attendance is light tonight. Still, the booth gets crowded fast, heat rising with everyone pressed close. Tyler slings his arm across the back of the seat to earn a little more real estate, squashed as he is between JR and Posey, and his knuckles inevitably bump the solid curve of Dylan’s shoulder.

Tyler listens to the buzz of six different conversations sparking up, enjoying the normalcy of it, the feeling of family. But then Dylan laughs and turns to sink his teeth into the heel of Tyler’s hand, and Tyler couldn’t care less about the new couch Posey had delivered this afternoon. Because Dylan peers at him around the untamed mop of Posey’s hair, eyes shining, and says, “What?” like Tyler has the answers. News flash, Tyler never has the answers.

Tyler can see Holland’s head tilt, the way the curtain of her hair falls just past Dylan’s cheek, and he can hear her, “Oh my _god_ , Hoechlin” above the heady roll of bass. Dylan’s expression shifts, eyes narrowed, lips pressed thin, but then he nods like he decided something and tosses his head back to howl.

“Up,” Dylan says, jostling Posey into Tyler, Tyler into JR. “I wanna dance. Dancing and I are about to get our freak on. Anyone who wants is welcome to join.”

JR slides out of the booth, scotch gripped tight. Posey’s elbow finds a home in Tyler’s side, jabbing until he too gets his knees under him alongside the booth, shirt stuck to his back and drink woefully abandoned. Grace seems to have blessed Posey tonight, because he slips out without a scratch, bouncing on his toes. Dylan, on the other hand, only narrowly avoids taking a chunk out of his skull on the edge of the booth, stuttered breathless laughter shaking his shoulders, his hand a warm weight against the curve of Tyler’s back where he braced himself.

Tonight, he looks different, Dylan. More grown up. Black jeans that actually fit and a deep purple henley that very nearly doesn’t. His hair, always a mess, seems studied, artful, and the easy way he slings an arm over Posey’s shoulders to sweep him off into the madness is something. Something else. Confident in a way Dylan has never really been, when they were all awkward elbows and uncertainty. Kids playing XBOX, squashed together on an anonymous sofa that came with the apartment, Cheeto dust on his lips and caught in the ridges of his fingerprints. None of them will ever be _smug_ , but it was different, before.

Before what, he couldn’t say. No secret, though, Dylan’s grown into himself. Maybe Tyler just forgot to notice.

JR leans close, presses Tyler’s glass against his palm. “I’ll manage these yahoos. Somebody should keep an eye on those,” he says, nudging Tyler after them. “Never know what they’ll get up to unattended. Last time there were fire marshals.”

Laughter catches in Tyler’s throat, and he slams the last of his drink to keep himself from betraying anyone’s confidence. Contrary to prevailing belief, the marshals had only been the beginning. “Wouldn’t want that,” he says around the sting, scotch settling in his stomach and warming him up. “I’ll try to keep them from getting arrested.”

By the time Tyler weaves through the maze of tables in the lounge, the crowd has swallowed both Posey and Dylan. Beyond the glorious wall, the music becomes a force of its own, vibrating up through the soles of his shoes, pressing at his skin. He’s not in the mood to get out there tonight, not really. And it’s not like the guys are unruly toddlers in need of constant supervision. Wading into a sea of bodies unremarked, letting the beat take him could be, would be, freeing if not for the week he’s had. Tonight, he’s happy to settle in on the sidelines, lean against the bar, and keep watch, fray adjacent.

The bartender shouts, “What can I get you?” before his elbows even land.

He turns, or starts to, but halfway there the voice at his back turns into a squeal, an eardrum-piercing auditory assault that eclipses the soaring treble strains of whatever song is thumping through its closing bars. That is until the bartender claps her hands over her mouth, eyes wide as saucers. Tyler watches the steel gather in her spine, the flush in her cheeks rising. She’s blonde and brown-eyed, early-twenties and pretty if a little girl-next-door to be considered classically beautiful. Her nose reminds him of Dylan’s.

“Holy shit, you’re Derek Hale,” she says, eventually. The crossfade to the next song has settled into something sharp and sparkling, lighter, so he can actually hear her without either of them having to yell.

There’s a triskele tattooed between her index finger and thumb, small but distinct, her nails crimson with black tips. At second glance, she’s got a little bit of an Erica thing going on with her hair. Aside from the squeal, she seems harmless. Excited. Normal. And he really does love the fans.

“Tyler, actually,” he says, bracing himself for another onslaught when he smiles at her, fully. “How about a scotch? Neat. And a picture.”

“With me?”

“How else will your friends believe you?”

“You’re so cool.” She smiles back at him then, mischief curling the corner of her mouth as she babbles unabashedly. “And nice. Did I mention cool? How is this my life?”

“Um. Thanks, I guess? I’m not…really.” Heat flares in the tips of his ears, and Tyler scratches the back of his neck, studying the nicks in the surface of the bar out of habit. “Got a camera?”

She rifles through her pockets fitfully, discarding pens and change, rubber bands and crumpled receipts between them on the bar before producing her phone from the mess with a little victory dance that makes her curls bounce. Tyler decides to ignore the _holy fuck_ she mutters when he leans across to sling an arm around her shoulders because he’s nothing if not a gentleman.

Moments stretch to a minute or more as she stares at the picture, and she comes back to herself all at once, hands fluttering wildly for a breath until they find bottle and glass, her phone slipped surreptitiously into her apron. “I’m Natalie, by the way. Nat,” she says then stops, her cheeks pinking anew. “Ugh. I’m making a complete fool of myself. No filter.” His drink lands on the bar between them, her fingers still curled around the glass, and her face transforms, her tone apologetic. “I said I’d never, but then…you and your arms strolled up to _my_ bar with that face. And…”

The heat shifts, creeping up the back of Tyler’s neck and into his cheeks, and suddenly he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he shoves them in his pockets and initiates a staring contest with his own personal patch of floor. He knows what he looks like. This body doesn’t just happen, he works hard on it because it’s part of the gig. He sees himself in the mirror every morning and when he brushes his teeth before he goes to bed. It’s still weird to him to be openly lusted after when this is the face he’s had his entire life. Most of all, he hates to think that’s all people see when they look at him.

“Tell me to shut up. Totally shutting up.” Natalie, Nat, mimes zipping her lips, throwing the key over her shoulder. Finally, she relinquishes her grip on his drink and slides it across the bar. Tyler goes for his wallet, but she waves him off. “Please. You have no idea how many internet celebrity points you’re earning me by breathing my air. It’s my treat. Really. Consider it asshole tax.”

Tyler smiles at her again and nods, tipping his glass her direction before he sucks down a sip. He’s not sure what Natalie thinks she’s done that requires recompense on her part, but this is nothing, so he lets it be nothing and turns back to the crowd, scanning for the boys again but coming up empty. Tyler can feel her watching, fidgeting in his blind spot.

“Look,” she says, huffing the hair out of her eyes, clearly embarrassed even if she’s standing her ground “I’m really sorry about all the shit you’re catching right now.” When he glances over his shoulder Nat has settled in, elbows tucked in the well and chin caught in the curve of her palms.

His abrupt retreat from the After Dark set was only the first thing the press latched onto. Now the gossip rags are all talking about the things Holland warned him they would. At length. Over the last couple of days, there have been at least a dozen pieces speculating about his sexual preferences. According to them, the lady (or in this case the gentleman) doth protest too much. Frustrating as it is, any rebuttal would only legitimize the claims.

“Nothing you need to apologize for,” Tyler says and shrugs, throws back a swallow of his scotch just to feel it burn. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a flash of dark hair and lime green t-shirt that might be Posey, but the crowd’s so thick, writhing so furiously, it’s hard to say.

“No.” Nat sighs, picking at a wet napkin until it starts to disintegrate, sad little purple flakes littering the bar between her hands. “I guess not. But people can be assfaces and nobody deserves that.”

“I knew better.”

“Still,” she says, pauses, and it feels significant, ponderous. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Not backing down.”

“I didn’t mean...” Natalie’s brow creases, lips parting either in shock or protest and Tyler scrambles to correct himself. “No, I just—I didn’t intend to make some kind of political statement. I wasn’t declaring war. It happened. Don’t get me wrong, I stand behind every word, but I probably could have chosen a more appropriate platform if it’s something I wanted to discuss, y’know, publicly.”

“Even if you didn’t mean to, I’m glad you did.” She leans forward, slow and easy, then rocks back on her heels, focused on the meandering line of condensation rings she’s rubbing at to keep herself from looking at him. Eventually, she does, her smile small and anxious. “My girlfriend is glad you did.”

“Who you love is not nearly as important as how well you do it,” Tyler says, catching and holding her gaze. These things are important, and he can’t believe how many kids he’s met over the years that have been made to feel ashamed for no sin greater than loving someone society thinks they shouldn’t. If nothing else good comes out of the publicity nightmare, Tyler can offer this much.

Grinning wide and bright, Nat swipes the bar one last time and winks at him before she starts to sidle away. “Like I said. The coolest.”


	5. Chapter 5

Two in the morning rolls around faster than it should.

The booth emptied quickly once the clock ticked past midnight, people drifting away buzzing and bleary-eyed. In the end, it’s just him and Holland camped out, her head pillowed against his shoulder and her fingers flying wildly through a series of texts to Colton. Dylan and Posey are still out in the badlands somewhere. While he hasn’t checked on them for forty-five minutes, Tyler can’t see them maiming or killing themselves now. Last call came and went without a peep about property damage, and Tyler’s neverending string of scotch is hitting him hard, turning him loose and lazy.

“Are you going to go round up Things One and Two or is this happy lump impression your way of asking me to?” Holland’s hands still only briefly before she starts tapping again.

“How is he?”

“Tired. So am I.” She yawns and sighs against his arm, her breath hot through his shirt. “That doesn’t mean you suddenly have the skills to deflect me. I’m undeflectable.”

“Flying up next weekend?”

“Undeflectable,” she croaks. Her finger feels like a tiny dagger trying to burrow through his bicep, but her eyes twinkle. “Unless, of course, you want to finish our conversation. I’ve totally got time for that.”

Tyler rocks his head back against the bolster and keeps his mouth firmly, decisively shut. The cool leather in the curve of his neck grounds him, sharpens him up enough he knows he definitely doesn’t want that. Calling a cab sounds like a plan. That or begging Holland to cart him home. She lives on the opposite side of the city, but driving in his condition would be a very bad idea. Very bad.

Holland’s phone clatters against the tabletop. “Please go collect the puppies so we can leave? If I’m playing taxi service for a pack of drunk and disorderlies, let’s get this show on the road.” The wait staff circles restlessly, flocking ever closer to the booth. Their sidelong glares aren’t threatening yet, but are edging into surly territory. Holland glares back. “Eventually they’re going screw up the courage to kick us out.”

Beyond the wall, the music has turned sultry, rubbing right up against all Tyler’s nerve endings and flipping them on.

“Fine,” he says, scooting sideways and out, swaying once before he steadies. “But don’t think this means what I know you think it means. Because you’re a menace and I hate you.”

His lower lip purses out all on its own, tingling and tacky with Coke, and he sucks at it almost absently to make it behave. Laughter bubbles up, and Holland shoves him on his way before it can truly take hold.

Tyler’s shoes stick to the floor as he shuffles through the lounge one last time. Bass hums at him the closer he gets, and his heartbeat skips into rhythm with it when he reaches the dance floor proper, the stink of sweat and warm beer and the cloying notes of some girl’s fruity perfume stinging in his nostrils.

A flash of pale skin catches his eye, painted up in shifting hues of gold and green, and Tyler stops for a second, lingers longer than he would without the booze opening him up, slowing him down. He stops and watches the sinuous, skyward stretch of arms, the flex of broad shoulders and the sweet, gentle slope of his, definitely his, neck. For all that Tyler has never taken advantage of his own relative fluidity, this is why he refuses to limit himself. Because he can admire the beauty of a sharply tapered waist, the way the guy’s tank pulls tight when he bends forward, how his skin turns luminous and infinitely touchable when he throws his head back to catch the light. His hips roll, achingly slow, like they’re only marginally attached to the rest of his body. When his back bows, a wildfire kicks up in Tyler’s gut, gusting hot with a _want_ dampened only by the knee-jerk guilt he always feels watching someone this way, when they can’t look back.

If he was braver, drunker, he could take a chance, tug his hat down over his brows and trust the dark to protect his identity. He’s only one of those things right now, yet not enough of either, and he really, truly wants no part of Holland’s ire tonight.

Mystery guy turns, gaze meeting Tyler’s unerringly and when Tyler focuses through the smoke and strobe, his throat closes up, lungs laboring against the pressure in his chest. Because now he can see the moles scattered across all that bare, shining skin, the ridiculous, unkempt tousle of hair porcupining on the dude’s head, the telltale gape of none other than _Dylan’s_ perpetually animated mouth. Ridiculous, amazing, impossible Dylan. The man himself smiles brightly, unselfconscious as he leans to tug at Posey’s sleeve and Tyler only has time to swallow hard before they’re on him, arms looped around each other and his shoulders, Dylan’s scent seeping into his clothes.

“Time to go?”

Sometime during the night, Dylan clearly stripped off one of his shirts. There’s a purple lump tucked through his belt at the small of his back that ruins the uninterrupted line of him. Tyler blinks down at it and back up at the way the lashes cling together in the corner of Dylan’s right eye before he shrugs out from under his arm.

“You stink,” Tyler says. The sour in his mouth has nothing to do with whiskey.

Dylan, of course, throws back his head and laughs. “Aww, tell me how you really feel, Heckles.” Suddenly there are sweaty hands tangled in his shirt, long fingers pulling it out of shape, and Tyler feels his brain slip sideways

“We smell like heaven,” Posey crows wildly, before tugging him into the world’s weakest excuse for a headlock. Tyler breaks the hold easily, and Posey wavers on his feet, listing to the left until Dylan reaches out to right him.

Dylan’s smile turns fond and blurry, and Tyler beams back, forgetting himself in the moment. “You two are so wasted,” Dylan mutters. For all he dwells on Derek, what Derek sees in Stiles, Dylan became background noise years ago.

Maybe that was a mistake.

Maybe Holland’s right.

She appears as if summoned, her hair gathered into a sloppy ponytail, heels replaced with a pair of flats she must have had magically squirreled away in her tiny purse. There’s a dangerous grin curled across her lips, and even lacking a fair percentage of his faculties Tyler notices how it slips wider when she sees Dylan tangled up around him.

“Everyone okay?” she says, and if Tyler didn’t know better, he’d think she’s asking Dylan.

Could be she is asking Dylan, because he’s the one that answers. “Nothing I can’t handle,” he says. “Hoechlin is roughly five hundred pounds of hairy, inebriated He-man, but I switched to water around eleven so I’m golden compared to these two lushbirds.”

“ _Hey_!” Posey’s protest dies quickly, lost to another round of giggling when Holland flicks the back of his ear. “Lushbirds are totally like flamingos and flamingos are rad,” he says and leans, trying to hike one foot up and flap his arms at the same time. Dylan catches him again, palming his forehead like a basketball, and gives him a gentle shove.

For some reason, Tyler feels compelled to remind everyone, “I’m not a flamingo,” grinning when he feels Dylan shake where they’re pressed together.

Holland sighs. “Which one do you want?”

Tyler closes his eyes, leaning his weight against Dylan’s heat, and Dylan’s grip tightens, fingers slotting between his ribs to squeeze. The blackness spins dangerously before it settles, the music making it throb behind his lowered lids. Standing seemed like such a good idea ten minutes ago, and right now he just kind of resents the who-gets-who debate on account of the acid burn creeping into his throat. Really, he doesn’t care how he gets out of here, as long as he does.

“Um.” Dylan hedges, tugs on his ear hard enough to turn it pink. “T needs to go to home tonight. Brunch with Seana’s parents in the morning.”

“Which is like six blocks from my place.”

“Normally, I’d just dump him on my couch, but...yeah.” Dylan squints and tongues at his teeth like he’s actually considering, but his eyebrows are doing that lazy dance of the already decided. “Guess I’m beach bound then, huh?”

“Total hardship, I know,” Holland says. A swath of purple light cuts across her jaw, arcing quickly back the way it came, but in that second her eyes sparkle with more than exhaustion. They look like plans. And while Tyler really would prefer getting a ride home from Dylan, suspicion says maybe Holland secretly incepted him into it.

Which is, well, whatever. Every last cell of him longs for the peace and quiet of his four walls, the ocean kissing his slice of California in the moonlight. At this point, Tyler couldn’t possibly care less about how he gets there.

“I can call a cab,” he says gamely, even though the thought of digging the phone out of his pocket to dial seems like a colossal waste of time.

“You’re shitting me, right?” Dylan’s arm flexes against his back, hip bumping Tyler’s when he shifts his weight. “You think I’d trust some random with your drunk ass right now? Hell to the no.”

Overhead, the loudspeaker crackles to life and a nasal voice drifts down from the rafters, thanking everyone for coming in one breath, telling them to get the hell out in the next. Holland reaches past Tyler to ruffle Dylan’s sweat-soaked hair, and the perfunctory kiss she drops on his cheek seems a fitting match for the shit-eating grin stretched across her lips when she pulls back.

“Be safe,” she says, shouldering in and under Posey’s arm, steering him deftly for the exit. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Not exactly inspiring restraint,” Dylan calls after her. Tyler watches Dylan’s throat work around the words, the way his chin tips up ever so slightly, the bounce of his Adam’s apple as he barks a single sharp peal of laughter. Those urges swell again. To take. To have. And this time the guilt of the unknown gets razed, burning him up from the inside out. Dylan knows he’s watching, has to. Subtlety escapes Tyler a lot of the time and looking back, he can’t fathom how Holland’s the only one who called him on this. But Dylan either can’t see or is too polite to mention it. Instead he says, “Guess that’s our cue?” and gets them moving toward the exit, loosing his hold only long enough to yank his rumpled shirt back on.

“Yep,” is all Tyler says in response, because he doesn’t trust his mouth to behave. Dylan’s stupid neck probably would look pretty all pinked up with stubble burn. Admitting he wants to see it, even to himself, is a fairly giant leap. One better left to morning. Or at least when he’s marginally more sober.

“You’re not usually this monosyllabic when you’re messed up.”

“Nope.”

“Seriously, dude. You cool?”

“Tired.” He is. “Long week.” It has been.

Dylan grins like he just won the lottery, fingertips digging into Tyler’s side. “And he speaks! Well if _someone_ didn’t insist on doing all his own stunts, maybe _someone_ could have grabbed a little more naptime.”

“I guess.”

“Totally going to pass out on me as soon as I get you in the car, huh?” Dylan’s breath stirs the fine hairs curled behind Tyler’s ear, and he coughs to cover the sound welling in his throat.

“Maybe,” Tyler says, strangled.

“Be real.”

“Probably.”

“Nice.” Dylan smirks, gleeful and unrepentant, and far more pleased than Tyler can handle right now. “You realize that means I get to scare the shit out of you when we arrive at Chez Heckles?”

“You get to try.”

Dylan laughs again, loud and long, mouth yawning wide, clutching at his stomach with the hand not branding its shape across Tyler’s ribs. His chest heaves twice, then again when his forehead thumps down against Tyler’s shoulder and he chokes himself into some semblance of control.

When Dylan pushes against it, the door sticks stubbornly. He shoves out into the night anyway, the air heavy with rain and dew. Beneath the scent of the city - smog and asphalt that never completely cools - there’s an undercurrent of salt and sea, and Tyler clings to it when his head begins to swim, the ground closer to his feet than it should be.

In his pocket, Tyler’s phone dings. Four times. He ignores it. Too many other things to pay attention to while he still can, while he’s allowed. Now that he’s given himself permission, watching Dylan takes effort - finding the expressions beneath the expressions. The way his eyes go tight sometimes, even as they crinkle at the corners. The odd twitch of his lower lip. The way he reels himself back in now they’re breathing free air. Like he wants to get away.

A flash lights his features, the upturned tip of his nose, and then is gone. Thunderstorm coming. Must be, with the lightning. To Tyler’s right the bushes rustle, twigs crackling.

Dylan’s voice changes then too, sloppy softness gathering edges. “Hey hey, buddy. Come on now.”

Another flash cuts through the murk, lights up a gap in the curb Tyler almost stepped into. Dylan and his heat withdraw further. Which is fine, completely. Tyler’s a grown ass man and can walk to the car on his own steam just fine, thank you very much.

“Tyler. _Tyler_ ”

The asphalt tilts and shimmers slightly, flickering neon refracted in the oil stains of too many cars left idling too long, and that last scotch sloshes in his stomach, turning it over. There’s a guy and a camera, another blinding flash as Tyler glances his way.

“What the...?”

“Do you have anything to say about the recent frenzy over at Jake Blakenship’s blog?” Guy says. The shutter clicks again, his face hidden behind the monstrosity he’s wielding. He shuffles backwards, trying to stay with them. Tyler reaches out instinctively to help when the dude half trips over the too-long hems of his rumpled khakis and almost overbalances.

“Who?”

Dylan latches on, trying to pull him back in as gently as he can, but even though Dylan’s hands are like magnets right now - that’s how much Tyler needs to follow him - the mess he made and the subsequent fallout requires constant attention. According to Chloe.

“Jake Blankenship,” the guy repeats with a sneer. “Care to comment on your hypothetical love affair with a certain co-worker?” His focus darts to Dylan, then back again. “Or the fact he thinks you’re maybe the most fiercely closeted queer in our great city?”

Tyler looks at the camera again, trying desperately to parse the question and figure out if anger is the best response here.

Dylan beats him to it.

“No comment,” Dylan spits out, yanking at Tyler’s elbow to get them walking again, muttering under his breath about moving to Siberia.

Unfortunately, the guy can’t seem to take a hint. He trails along in their wake, determined, even as Dylan pushes the pace faster.

“Can you explain why, in all the interviews following the After Dark stunt, you’ve steered clear of discussing your love life?”

Tyler starts to turn back so he can answer. Before he even opens his mouth, Dylan shoves Tyler at the passenger side of a sleek, black SUV and puts himself between them, his shoulders squared, arms crossed.

“His love life is really none of your business, man.” Ever gracious in spirit, Dylan smiles winningly at the guy, while his words aim to wound.

The guy snorts, lowering his camera for a second to gloat. “It is if someone will pay to read about it,” he says, then snaps another picture over Dylan’s shoulder.

Even though it’s damp, the cool metal feels good on his cheek, and Tyler rolls his forehead against it. “Chloe’s going to cut my balls off,” he mutters. “Literally.” He traces the shape of the lock, surprised when it clicks open beneath his fingers.

“Why don’t you get in, Ty?” Dylan says, smoothly. “Seems Jimmy Olson here is pretty much done asking questions.”

“Dyl...”

Dylan’s lips press thin, but he reaches back to ease the door open, keeping his attention on the guy. “Just get in the car, okay?” he says.

Tyler does. Even if the outside still confuses him a little, the interior is all O’Brien. Which is to say, ordered chaos. He sits on a baseball mitt, accidentally. There’s a striped beach towel slung across the back of his seat, a pair of sport sandals discarded in the aisle. The laptop bag wedged behind the driver’s side is in pristine condition, but the Mets cap perched atop it seems to have survived some zombie apocalypse.

He reaches for the hat, fingertips catching brim just when the driver’s side door opens and Dylan slumps in beside him. Dylan rubs at his upper lip roughly, and when Tyler glances out over the dashboard, it’s like the annoying guy with the camera never existed.

“Is he dead?”

Dylan makes a frustrated, humorless little noise and shoves his key in the ignition. The engine turns over easy, humming as Dylan guides them into the paltry late night traffic. His quiet “No” almost gets lost in the road noise. The terse, “Seat belt” definitely doesn’t.

“That’s good, I guess.” Tyler says, obediently dragging the belt across his body, snapping the buckle with clumsy hands. “I don’t mind making Chloe earn her money, but everybody has a limit.”

“Now you’re a coherent, reasoning human being?” Dylan glances at him, fleeting and steely-eyed, before turning his attention back to the road, jaw muscles twitching.

“Always am.” Tyler drawls and sweeps his glasses off to pinch the bridge of his nose. His vision blurs to colors and shapes, bright bursts of white, then resolves. “Maybe slightly less so than usual.”

“Not that I wouldn’t willingly stand between you and the hordes of Mordor, dude, but what the actual fuck?”

“I don’t--”

“Since when do the papanazis lie in wait for you?” Dylan’s voice has gone tight and reedy, and Tyler hates that he’s the cause of it.

“Yeah,” he says.

Just, yeah. There’s nothing else to be said, really, so Tyler leaves it alone. This is his life right now. Soon, it’ll blow over. He should apologize for getting Dylan involved, though, since it’s the absolute _last_ thing he wanted. Hell, it’s why he hasn’t said anything to Dylan about the press he’s done, post-Charity. Hoechlin men clean up their own messes.

“How long,” Dylan says, suddenly quiet again and chewing his lip, drumming his fingers restlessly against the steering wheel.

The question genuinely throws Tyler, and he looks at Dylan, actually shifts in his seat until his knees knock together and the belt pulls tight against his throat.“How long, what?” he asks.

“How long with the interviews?”

Dylan swerves to avoid a slow moving compact, jerky and a little reckless, and Tyler’s stomach roils with more than simple guilt.

“Monday.” Tyler says, tugging his hat down over his brows to hide. His hands have a mind of their own, though, and refuse to settle as they normally would. He drags his phone out of his pocket just to give them something solid to latch onto, but stops short of unlocking the screen. “I needed to. I had to clean...had to make it clear what I meant. Why I was so--y’know.”

Dylan glares through the windshield, and the temperature drops ten degrees. “So, what you’re really saying, is when I came to see you, after, you knew you were--”

“Yeah.” No use in denying now, and the admission rolls off his lips effortlessly. For all Tyler chose his truths to protect Dylan’s feelings, Dylan’s image, he never planned to lie. “Yes. Monday morning I drank a lot of coffee with entertainment reporters.”

“And you didn’t think to mention it?” Dylan snaps, knuckles bleeding to white and back again where his fingers flex around the wheel.

“It’s not your problem to fix.” Tyler shoots back, a flash of heat rising in his ears. “I just. Your career, your life. You don’t need the negative attention. I walked out,” he says, and thumps a palm against his chest. “I did that. You did what you were supposed to do. You stayed. I left you there to deal with her. With my mistakes.”

“Fucking-- Hoechlin, sometimes I just want to--” Dylan relinquishes his death grip to drag rough fingers through his hair. The combination of sweat and gel makes it stand even more on end and Tyler aches to straighten it.

Dylan stops short at a light, and the belt locking down shocks a laugh out of Tyler. He’s too drunk to parse the expression Dylan turns on him, so he sighs and says,“What?” and waits for an explanation.

“Most of the time I wonder where Derek Hale comes from.” Dylan says, and this time when he pulls away the movement’s gentle, fluid. Tyler and his stomach both appreciate the kindness. “You are literally the happiest asshole I’ve ever known.”

“Okay?”

“United front, dude. You, much like Derek Hale, do _not_ have to do it alone. So what if it isn’t my mess? Maybe I wanted to be there to support you. Show of solidarity. Whatever.”

“Okay...”

“We were together when it happened, right? Maybe I had things to talk about, too.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t...” Dylan’s fist hits the wheel and the tires squeal as he takes a turn too fast. The muscle in his jaw clenches and releases fitfully again, like he’s chewing his words over before he spits them out. “You’re ridiculous. Don’t just say okay. This is...it’s important.”

“What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry? I am. I didn’t mean to piss you off, Dylan. I just...I didn’t want to assume.”

“When’s the next thing?”

“There’s not--I’m done. Or thought I was. After this, who knows.”

“You have any idea who this Blankenship dude is?”

“Really don’t,” Tyler answers, because it’s true. “But I do have a pretty good idea what he may have posted.” Which, is also true. Not the rumors, not entirely, but then the questions began to change a couple days ago. When people got tired of talking in generalities and started analyzing, or just operating on supposedly hard gossip. Chloe sent him aggregates from her social media analytics. The After Dark incident has officially taken a backseat to the apparently burning questions about whether he likes girls or boys. Considering the conversation he and Dylan had less than a week ago, Tyler can’t ask for support in this. No matter how loud the protests.

“And?” Silence has stretched out between them, spinning the tension into something familiar, safe, and Tyler closes his eyes. Streetlights whizz past, pops of brightness behind his lids as Dylan speeds through the streets. He heard camera guy’s accusations, Tyler knows he heard. Yet, he’s still asking.

“You don’t have to do this,” Tyler says. “You’re not obligated.”

“Hell no, I’m not.” Shadows cut his profile into sharp shapes, his wry smile turned into something sad. Tyler stares. There’s no other word for it. Dylan looks truly terrified for the first time in a very long time. Terrified, but resolved. “The only person I owe this to is myself.”

“Are you sure?” A lump lodges in Tyler’s throat, huge and impossible to swallow around. He names it dread. Not for himself, but for Dylan. This isn’t the sort of shit you agree to lightly, especially not after a night out. It should be considered, the pros weighed carefully against the cons.

“Will I ever be? Probably not. But I talked to Luke. And my parents. Hell, I even talked to Jeff. There’s no such thing as ‘ready’ with something like this, but I like who I am. And someday, when I have actual time to go on a date with some lucky asshole, if it happens to be a dude, I don’t want to have to ask him to sneak around because he has a dick. That’s just stupid.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought about it.”

“I have.”

“And you’re really sure.”

“Hoechlin. I love you, man, but please don’t try to save me from myself. Not on this one.” Dylan says, but Tyler hears the _You wouldn’t understand._ tacked onto it.

Hands raised, Tyler surrenders. Because he doesn’t understand. Recent revelations aside, the life he’s lived up to this point has been charmed, easy, his internal identity perfectly aligned with what he shows the world. Honest is the only way he has ever lived, the only way he’s ever wanted to be, and while this might be a perfect opportunity to tell Dylan how things have changed for him, it definitely isn’t the time.

Instead, he gets lost in the thoughts of Dylan with his generic everyman - sitting on the pier, grabbing dinner at Emilio’s, sunning side-by-side on an anonymous stretch of beach, hiking the trails of Topanga, going to Dodgers games, waking up together - and, without reason or rationale, he hates him, this guy he’s dreamed up to walk with Dylan. To be with Dylan.

Whether it’s character bleed or insanity, Tyler knows, knows without a shadow of a doubt, he has to say something.

Because it could be good, with Dylan. If he can find it in himself to be brave.

Because Holland _is_ right.

 

* * *

 

“Hey there Rip Van Winkle. You still alive over there?” Dylan’s voice startles him, the fire gone out of it now they’ve mostly settled things. All except the biggest thing. The biggest thing from Tyler’s perspective anyway. The glass pressed against his cheek is inexplicably spattered with rain, the tendons in his neck tight enough they’d vibrate if he plucked at them. Beyond the nose of the car, his house sits, dark and silent, a golden glow reflecting off the garage door and the pale concrete of the driveway where Dylan’s left the running lights on.

“And kicking,” Tyler groans, stretching his arms back over the headrest until his back cracks. It feels amazing. Rolling his head sideways, not so much, but it does allow him to look. To watch the way Dylan’s fingers flex around the steering wheel, then stroke the curve.

“Yeah, well.” Dylan swings his gaze, heavy-lidded and sleepy as it is, on Tyler. “As long as you can walk under your own power, I’m not carrying you inside. There are lines.” His hand slices through the air emphatically. “They will not be crossed.”

“Like you could carry me inside, even if you wanted to,” Tyler snorts. For half a second he wishes he were drunk enough to require assistance. Since his internal monologue hasn’t been reduced to ‘buh,’ he’s pretty sure he can manage the door and maybe even make it to the bed on his own steam. Even the suggestion sparks memories, though. Posey and Dylan both clinging to him as he shuffled blearily down the hall to their place in Atlanta. That one time Dylan turned so belligerently handsy, a fireman’s carry from the cab to his bedroom had been the only viable option. He hadn’t thought, then. But now. “ I, on the other hand...”

Dylan blinks, looking down and quickly away, and clears his throat. “Yeah, yeah. You’re an actual superhero. I get it. We _all_ get it.”

“Dylan.”

“Oh god, stop looking at me like I ate your puppy. Yes. I know you didn’t mean it like that,” Dylan says, giving himself a good full-body shake. “You are now and always will be the Strapping Mayor of Sunshine Town who would never use his remarkable physical prowess for evil. Sorry. I’m just. Prickly.” Tired. “And nervous.” Worried.

“You don’t have to do this.” Tyler repeats, quietly enough Dylan can ignore him if he wants to.

“I really, really do.”

Dylan visibly swallows down his panic and grins. It’s small and a little lopsided, but it puts a knot in Tyler’s tongue, makes his heart swell in his chest until he could swear, would swear the thing is about to make a break for it. Give up the ghost for good and thump right on out of his chest.

The pride isn’t new, but soft and supple, worn smooth with use where Dylan’s concerned. And Tyler, well, he feels incredibly stupid.

“Dude, you okay?” Dylan’s brows pull together, accentuating the shadows smudged into the hollows beneath his eyes.

“Yeah,” Tyler breathes. “I’m perfect.”

“Okaaaay? That’s...good?” Dylan shifts in his seat, knee bouncing out a nonsense rhythm. “How about you go be perfect inside?”

Bed sounds a little bit like heaven right now, so Tyler reaches for the door handle and heaves himself out into the driveway.

“I’ll get in touch with Chloe,” Tyler says, thumb picking at the weather-stripping before he catches himself and shoves his hands in his pockets. Keys jangle. “I’m sure she can probably set something up.”

Dylan nods, clearly more decided than he was five minutes ago, even though he’s slumped over the steering wheel half asleep himself. “Night, Heck,” he murmurs. “Glad you came.”

“Drive safe,” Tyler says, shoving the door shut hard enough the mastiff three houses down woofs out a warning. Headlights flick on, blinding bright, because Dylan can sometimes be a little shit. Tyler scrambles for his phone, his keys, shuffling for the walkway. And because Dylan is only sometimes a little shit, he sits tight until Tyler flicks the porch light on.

The beams flicker, start to swing away, and Tyler flips through to Dylan’s contact and taps out a terse: _Text me when you land._ that goes unanswered.

Tomorrow.

When they’re both sane and sober and there aren’t any excuses to get in the way, tomorrow he’ll come clean.


	6. Chapter 6

Tomorrow bleeds rapidly into Monday. Monday to Tuesday. Tuesday to...

Each sunrise brings another excuse, and keeping quiet becomes habit. They shoot scenes, screw around, eat lunch, and aside from the considering looks Holland casts Tyler’s way whenever he’s within six feet of Dylan, everything returns to normal.

Which is kind of the problem.

Because for Tyler, there’s a new normal to reconcile. One he can’t blame on booze or exhaustion. Where he knows in his bones the _thing_ with Dylan has probably never been about character bleed. And as innocent as it may have been at first, there’s a definite, tangible desire he couldn’t dismiss even if he wanted to.

Doing anything about it, saying anything--well, that’s another story. So Tyler has allowed himself the lie. Continues to allow it, actually, until Wednesday dawns, the sky clear and air crisp, and Chloe’s wrangling forces him to face the truth.

“Seven sharp,” she said. “Don’t be late,” she said. “I will break your board.”

Tyler leaves the house at quarter to six and blasts the stereo with the windows down all the way to the studio.

This early, the soundstage stands empty, cavernous without the usual bustle of bodies moving through it. The small cluster of production offices fare little better save the quiet drift of something slow and classical on the air. Russell probably, reviewing the schedule for the upcoming day or the dailies from last night.

Hesitant to break the spell, Tyler creeps past the door and the shaft of light that spills from it into the hall, veering sharply into the tiny conference room at the very last second.

Dylan startles, crumbs flying, when he clears the threshold.

“Hshyjit, doo!” There’s half a pumpkin muffin consuming most of the real estate in his mouth, and Tyler laughs, mostly at himself, because damn if Dylan isn’t still attractive. How had he missed that? And for so long? Dylan chews and swallows, knocking back a gulp of coffee from the takeout cup at his elbow. “One of these days, it’ll be a sucker and I’ll choke and die and Jeff will fire you and then where will we be?”

“Sounds like you’ve already decided,” Tyler says, fighting his smile. “Dead. And unemployed.” He may be, no, is nervous, but Dylan’s still Dylan.

Somehow, Dylan manages to huff a little laugh around another bite of muffin, shoving a second coffee cup and a lump wrapped in crinkling brown paper across the table just as Tyler sinks into the chair opposite. Dylan’s laptop, set up between them, earns more careful consideration, the mess cleared from between the keys and shuffled off onto a napkin before he considers it good enough. Another swallow and swig later, Dylan coughs. “See if I ever buy you breakfast again.”

“You didn’t have...”

“I wanted to, okay. Cheez Whiz on a fucking cracker, Heck.” Dylan takes another long pull from his cup, and Tyler watches the fragile flutter in his throat like a creep.“Though how you can call that monstrosity breakfast, I will never, ever know.”

Fisher’s, the diner down the street, offers this line of morning paninis, all of them delicious, but only one satisfies the strict diet they’re killing him with again this year. Lean, they said, hungry but strong. How Dylan remembered, Tyler couldn’t begin to guess. It’s been at least six months since they did this. Yet, there’s a blue diamond stamped on the outside of his venti black, the unmistakable stylized F swirled in gold through it’s sharp lines. Sure enough, once Tyler peels back the paper, it’s his usual - wholegrain wheat and egg whites with grilled heirloom tomatoes, a couple healthy chunks of avocado, and a paper thin slice of havarti.

“This is, I...” _Thank you_ , he wants to say, but he’s tongue-tied by the gesture, the situation, the flock of tiny leprechauns dancing a jig in his stomach because he’s going to do this, has to do this. Not doing this would make him a hypocrite.

“Thank you,” Dylan says, fingers tapping against his sternum, then the table. “For, y’know. Or, I guess, um, thank Chloe.” On a normal day, Dylan defaults to an energy output of six, maybe seven. Today, he’s turned up to eleven and vibrating. Left unchecked, Russell will storm into the room and threaten to sit on him any minute now.

Tyler says, “No big deal” and means it, because it wasn’t. Isn’t. Could never be with Dylan. And because he didn’t actually _do_ anything. His hands feel like claws, talon-tipped, where they wrap around his coffee, vicious and unpredictable, and he refuses to manhandle his sandwich.

There are things, of course, plenty to say. But they’re, all of them, big. Bigger than the night sky in the Badlands. And he’s not quite ready. Not yet.

Time’s precious, though, and if the amount of mental self-flagellation Tyler’s put himself through since that night didn’t shake out once and for all how he feels, he’s not sure anything can.

“Hey Dylan...” he starts, girding himself with a deep breath, and Dylan’s eyebrows hike skyward, the shape of his face comical thanks to the other half of his pumpkin muffin lingering in the chipmunk stretch of his cheeks, the spray of powdered sugar caught in the corner of his stupidly pink mouth. “Can you swallow or something? I have, y’know, stuff I want to talk to you about. And, no offense, not really looking to hose down after.”

Dylan snorts then winces, slapping a palm over the purse of his lips and kicking at the table leg. It takes nearly a minute for him to clear the mechanism enough to talk. “Man, I’m so glad you’re a Boy Scout. Wasn’t really looking forward to death by muffin going on my tombstone.” He downs another long swallow of his coffee, Adam’s apple bobbing, taunting. “Lucky for me, you’re not that funny.”

“Sure I am,” Tyler deadpans, and chomps down a bite of his own breakfast, stalling. Dylan glares across the rim of his cup. “So the other night, I...” Tyler starts again, then stops. Somehow the paper once wrapped around his sandwich is slowly disintegrating into tiny annoying bits of brown snow. They’re collecting, drifting in the creases of his jeans. Down the hall, “Night on Bald Mountain” swings into its dizzying denouement. Tyler shrugs it off and steels himself, refusing to take it as a bad omen. “There are some things I maybe need to be more honest about.”

“Don’t tell me...” Dylan steeples his fingers together, elbows propped on the table. “You like to go to random pet stores and kiss kittens.”

“No...I mean, yes. I mean, what?”

“Just a guess. Y’know. Considering all the,” Dylan stops and gestures like his hands can finish the sentence for him, sighing when they don’t. “Pomp and circumstance, I’m full-on preparing for the worst. The _worst_. In my head right now, you’re dying of cholera.”

Pressure eases in Tyler’s chest at the short bark of laughter and the smile Dylan follows it with. “Nothing like that,” Tyler says. “Not even close.”

Dylan rolls his shoulders and nods, settling forcibly into his usual six-point-five hum. “Okay. Hit me.”

Now or never, Tyler thinks. Or maybe later. Later could be good. He remembers back, almost a year ago, when they first found out about Jeff’s plans. How he didn’t want it to change things between them. The sentiment still stands. He can’t lose Dylan over this. Okay, doesn’t want to lose Dylan over this. But there’s no way he can go film the pages he got yesterday without coming clean.

It would be wrong.

And if there’s anywhere to start, it’s at the beginning. So Dylan understands why it’s taken so long to get here.

“A while back there was this girl. Lizzie,” he says, careful, so careful. Fear sits on the back of his tongue, a leaden coppery weight. There’s no reason to think this time will be the same, but Tyler can’t help his instincts. In spite of them, he clears his throat and presses on. “She was smart. Funny. Completely ridiculous. We did a movie together the summer I turned twenty-one.” Tyler risks a glance and finds Dylan watching him, his usually animated features still, his hands flat and long fingers spread wide against the glass tabletop. Tiny halos of fog spread around each fingertip where the hot meets cold, and Tyler stamps down the sudden, irrational urge to taste them, to lick away the specks of sugar still clinging in the crease of Dylan’s lips. “She was also...”

Between them, the laptop chimes, screen flickering to life as the video chat syncs up and a familiar face comes into focus - one of the guys from The Backlot he’s talked to before. John, Jack maybe? Shit. Jim. Definitely Jim.

Dylan shoots him a glare, one that says _we’re not done here_ before he swivels and scoots around the end of the table, coffee close at hand. “Heeeey Jim, Chloe mentioned you were booked solid this morning, so I’m ready...” He waves his hand emphatically, until Tyler follows suit and swings in next to him. “We’re ready to get right down to it.”

Jim shoves at his glasses and smiles too brightly considering the hour. “Are you kidding me? I’ve always got time for you guys,” he says. “Dylan. Tyler. Pleasure, of course.”

Beside him, Dylan shifts, leaning to his left far enough their shoulders brush, and Tyler tries to shrug it off, grabs for his own cup and the easy distraction it offers. Dylan, predictably, has rocketed right back to the honed edge of his anxiety.

“Thanks for doing this on such short notice,” Dylan says, dragging the side of his hand across his lower lip, and Tyler angles in, nudges at Dylan’s calf until he sighs and his hands drift down, fold together in his lap.

“I should be thanking you.” Jim clears his throat and looks down, wrangling a stack of paper and his own coffee mug at the same time.

“I don’t know...” Dylan starts, suddenly sheepish.

“Are you kidding me?” Jim crowds closer to his webcam, his features going a little fish-eyed. “You guys together for the first time since After Dark? I know at least a dozen people who would literally kill me to be sitting in this chair right now.”

Laughter catches them all off-guard, and Tyler, at least, rolls with it, lets it shake loose some of his tension. There will be a time for talking to Dylan frankly, but in front of the press is not it. Something in him settles at the reprieve.

“Anyway,” Jim says. “As you mentioned, I do have a full schedule today so let’s get right down to it.”

Dylan says, “Of course” at the same time Tyler says,“No problem” and they smirk at each other, elbows knocking together. It’s easy, comfortable and Tyler wonders, hopes it still will be. After.

“I’m assuming there’s a reason you called me,” Jim says, lacing his fingers together, bringing his hands to rest atop the pile of paperwork. “You know, instead of the other way around?”

“Yeah. Um,” Dylan chuckles uneasily, elbow digging harder into Tyler’s side even as he scratches the back of his head with the hand not stuck between them. “I had no idea this joker was doing press without me.”

Tyler chokes around the sip of coffee he’s just taken.“Hey, now,” he says, kidding and a little gleeful about being able to. Interviewing by himself had been an awkward, mostly sober affair. While the reporters conducting the interviews were nice enough and clearly charmed by him, none of them know him as well as Dylan does. “We talked about this.”

“We did. Sorry.” Both of Dylan’s hands shoot up in mock surrender. The left one clips Tyler’s cup and nearly sends it flying. “No harm, no foul. He did what he thought was right.”

“Which isn’t what we’re here to talk about,” Tyler reminds him.

“Nope, not even a little bit.”

Even though Dylan’s the reason they’re both haunting the abandoned production offices at the asscrack of dawn, he makes no move to continue. And Tyler understands, he does, but the direction of this interview depends solely on Dylan’s decisions. “So we’re here to talk about?” Tyler prompts, gently.

For a second, Dylan doesn’t answer, just twitches. “Stiles. And Derek,” he says, finally, shoulders slumping as he settles back into his chair. “And them. Together.”

“We can do that, sure.” Jim smiles up at them, shoves his glasses up the bridge of his nose, tapping them to make them stay. “I’ll have a couple of questions of my own at the end, but you’re well within your rights not to answer them.”

“Of course,” Tyler says, but he squints at Jim, considering. He’s a friend of the show, has been for a long time, but every journalist has a story they can’t let go. This may be his.

“Clearly what happened in the mid-season finale has been a long time coming,” Jim says, matter-of-factly. “Why do you think now was the time?”

The question is a soft ball, one that they halfway addressed on After Dark, and Tyler flashes a grin then glances at Dylan who waves his hand magnanimously, letting Tyler take it.

“Well, Derek’s more settled now than he ever has been.” Dylan snorts and fiddles with his coffee stirrer. “Hear me out. I mean, whatever, this could all change tomorrow, but I feel like he knows where stands now, definitively. And even though he may not know exactly where he’ll be in the end, he’s looking forward instead of back. He really understands his family is gone and that he can kill himself trying to be what he assumes his mother would want, what Kate made of him, or he can be something better, become someone better. Honor their memories by learning to live with his past. Maybe belong to a pack again, a different kind of pack, possibly even a better kind of pack. Because as much as I think he loved them and respected his mother, that pack also birthed Peter. And even though he’ll never truly be Scott’s beta, he feels like maybe he can belong again, at least enough to hold the family lands in trust until something nasty shuffles him off this mortal coil.”

Dylan stares at him for a breath, then two.“Wow,” he says, voice catching in his throat. “That’s kind of...morbid.”

On the other end of the webcam, Jim either doesn’t care or doesn’t notice, too busy furiously scribbling notes to interject.

“Dude, Derek’s entire life is horrible. Derek is horrible at life.” The thump of shoulder meeting shoulder very nearly jostles Dylan off-balance and Tyler realizes he’s leaning in to try to make the point and reels himself back. Static crackles between their t-shirts when he does. “I actually thought that was pretty hopeful. I mean, he’s laid the past to rest. He’s not seeking vengeance or doing penance. He hasn’t really forgiven himself because he’s not there yet. But he has given himself permission to let go just a little, to share the burden instead of white-knuckling it from one crisis to the next by himself.”

“Yeah.” The word stretches like taffy, shaping Dylan’s mouth, and Tyler fumbles for his sandwich to keep himself from staring. “I. Don’t even know what to do with that.”

“Okay.” Tyler shrugs and takes a bite, albeit a small one, and chews slowly.

Dylan barks a laugh. “Basically you just said Derek’s allowing himself to be a human...er - semi-normal-werebeing again and like the first thing he wants for himself is to mack on Stiles.”

“Well, he did manage to purchase an actual bed, first.” Tyler says after swallowing. His coffee has gotten to a temperature where he can chug it, so he does. “And an entire roof, one without holes. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. There was Jennifer, too. Just because she turned out to be a dark druid bent on vengeance doesn’t mean Derek didn’t find comfort with her, in her temporarily. Speaking of, I doubt he’s thinking about it this way, but Stiles is the safe choice. Someone he knows and trusts already rather than someone new. Basically, that’s all a really long-winded way to say Derek’s ready. Not that he’d ever say so.”

Dylan squints at him, starts to say at least three things he swallows, and Jim takes the opportunity to guide them back to the point.“Dylan, what about you?” Jim says, scratching out a line of text and replacing it with another.

“Uh, sure.” Dylan fingers the sleeve wrapped around his cup, pulling at the glue until the ring begins to release. “I think it’s a little bit of the opposite for Stiles. I mean, we’ve seen him fall apart to varying degrees over the last couple of years, and he’s finally reached a real breaking point. He feels fragile and a little useless and...y’know.” Dylan’s hands stutter, and he sets the mangled strip of cardboard aside when it pops open, and Tyler watches him, wolfing down half of his now lukewarm panini in the time it takes Dylan to meander through his answer. “I mean, he knows Scott will always have his back when it counts and that he’ll listen more times than not. But advice is really all he has to offer. Advice and belief. Maybe perspective. So he’s at an impasse. Like, I think kissing Derek Hale is pretty self-destructive on his part. Not that Stiles hasn’t been pretty unilaterally self-destructive in the past, but he has that darkness in him, now. Maybe he’s just doing it to see if he can get away with it. Whether he can beat it like he has everything else. Also, to see if anyone will notice. He genuinely cares for and about Derek at this point, but he also knows Derek well enough now to understand just what a hot mess he is. And maybe he’s beginning to realize nice isn’t what does it for him.”

“And you thought my answer was morbid?” They’ve talked about it before, that Stiles is only doing this to see if he can, to see whether Scott will let him get away with it, whether his dad will. The thought makes Tyler inexplicably sad.

“That wasn’t morbid,” Dylan says, kicking his feet up onto the chair at the other end of the table. “It was dramatic. Stiles is very dramatic.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

Jim clears his throat and Tyler’s attention snaps back. He was totally staring at the thin strip of grey fabric peeking out between Dylan’s t-shirt and jeans. Apparently he has no shame. “So where do they go from here?”

Dylan frowns. “Well, we can’t say much. Spoilers.”

“But we can say it doesn’t end there,” Tyler admits, because he can offer that much.

“Fair enough.” Jim says, flipping to fresh page. “Switching gears. What has it been like for the two of you to play the evolution of their relationship?”Jim stops and heaves a frustrated sigh, raises a placating palm. “Not that I’m implying you should approach it differently, of course. But you’ve been friends and castmates for awhile now. Does that familiarity make the forced intimacy of an on-screen romance more or less awkward?”

Tyler smiles, thrilled that someone, somewhere finally gets it.“Well, it’s always awkward. Love scenes are kind of the bane of an actor’s existence. You make the best of it, try to have a few laughs over how ridiculous everything is, but it’s never a great day.”

“I’m going to go ahead and say more.” Dylan says, butting in before Tyler actually finishes his answer. It’s fine. This, at least, they’re always on the same page about. “More awkward. All of it. Mostly because this poor schmuck has to get all up close and personal with my herpes.”

Jim coughs, one brow raised but his eye line has clearly moved in a southerly direction.

“Holy sh-crap, no. I mean, I get cold sores.” Flailing is the only appropriate word for what Dylan does. Like he doesn’t know what his limbs should be doing but they must communicate his shock. The chair where he’d propped his feet clanks ominously when he sits up again. “Not. The other,” he says and glances fleetingly at his crotch, making a move to adjust himself and then thinking better of it, leaving him to squirm in his seat like there’s a colony of ants building a hill in his boxers. “Because no, there would be no conceivable reason for Hoechlin to ever get anywhere near those other herpes I totally do not have. _NO_ reason. Why would he--I? Why? Oh my god...” Dylan’s face is flushed all the way up to his hairline when he turns to Tyler, his cheeks violently splotchy. For his part, Tyler is still trying to process when Dylan grabs his wrist and shoves his fingers into a fist. “Please punch me in the face so I stop talking? Just, put me down. Right now.” Then he’s gone again, grip surrendered as Dylan turns back to Jim, his expression pleading. “Can we pretend I passed out after I said: ‘more awkward’?”

Heat sears across Tyler’s own cheeks, spreading when realization strikes, because never is a strong word. One Dylan technically hasn’t said, but the implication is there. That he can literally see no future, no possible timeline where Tyler might be familiar with his entirely imaginary herpes. Dylan’s mouth purses for half a second and then trip on, moving, always moving, but Tyler can’t make out what he’s saying over rush of blood in his ears. And for that second he hates them, those lips, the slick pinkness of them when Dylan’s tongue flicks out. Because he had a dream, maybe even more than one, about padding around his sad little beach bungalow. About Dylan doing the same and being comfortable, maybe even happy there, his grin wide and bright, tilted with mischief and intent. He wants to know the parts of Dylan still secreted from him. Apparently, Dylan doesn’t want the same.

Tyler stares at the sad, cold breakfast sandwich still nestled in it’s half shredded wrapper until he can’t stand the sight of it anymore and lobs it at the trash can across the room.

“Dude, are you cool?” Dylan’s brows make the concerned shape, his hand closing around Tyler’s shoulder. It’s all Tyler can do to resist leaning into it. Better if he doesn’t kid himself about what it means.

“I’m good,” Tyler says. “Sorry, long week. Long weekend. What were you saying?”

Dylan lingers longer than he has to before he pulls back, but it’s nothing, a friendly gesture like a thousand others they’ve shared. “Jim here was talking about representation,” Dylan says. “How ground-breaking it is to have not one but two members of the main cast with alternative sexual identities that aren’t overtly defined by that identity.”

“Oh, sure, of course. It’s one of the things I enjoy most about my job. I mean, the other night I met a fan while I was out, and she thanked me for it, for representing her. I didn’t--look, whatever anyone might think, it’s not their place to judge. Love is love. And I think regardless of how love comes to you, you have to cherish it, cultivate it,” Tyler says, attention drifting again to Dylan and his hands, his mouth, his eyes, with an incomprehensible longing he’s never allowed himself. He acts. He asks. Even with Lizzie, he’d only taken a couple of days to figure out how to say something before he actually made his confession. He’s been quiet too long when he finally refocuses, back on the laptop, on Jim, and finishes his thought. “A lot of people aren’t so lucky. While I’d never assume I know or understand what they’ve had to go through, I hope watching these characters makes them feel a little less alone.”

On his right, Dylan fidgets restlessly. Rubs at his nose. Threads his fingers together and tugs them apart. Every rustle of fabric pings against Tyler’s awareness, but he refuses to look. It’s an opening, as wide of one as he’s given Dylan in a long time, aiming for grace even if it falls short. Because. Because he likes to think he’s a good person, and he knows he still loves Dylan, even if Dylan doesn’t feel the same.

Dylan swallows and makes an aborted move for his coffee cup, eventually settling save the teeth worrying at his lower lip. “Yeah, I mean. One of the things I would love to do with Stiles is show how its okay to be confused. To not know what they hell you want, necessarily. Or who. To think you want things and then decide you don’t. How we’re all making it up, every day. Feeling our way blindly through life even if we were handed a road map. But, um, I think we all know those decisions are slightly above my pay grade.”

It’s not an admission, but it’s as close as Dylan’s ever gotten, publicly. Everything else aside, Tyler’s proud of him, and it’s best to end these things on a high note.

“So, Jim,” Tyler says. “If there’s nothing else you want to cover, I think we’ve...”

Jim’s face shifts through half a dozen expressions, before twisting into a resigned frown. “Just a couple of things, if you don’t mind. I’ve been covering you kids for years now, and I hate to even ask, but they’d have my hide if I didn’t.”

“Okay...”

“Tyler, I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors by now, if not first-hand, at least through your publicist. Is there any truth to them?”

Dylan shifts again, crouching close to the camera. “Look, no offense, man. That’s not what we’re here--” Tyler reaches for Dylan this time, feels the hot flex of tendons in Dylan’s neck, under his palm.

“D, it’s okay. Seriously.” Tyler knows he can’t tell the truth here, but perfected the art of deflecting with a smile years ago. So he smiles, wide and winning. “Um, I’m not sure what the rumors are, really, but in general I try to avoid putting stock in gossip.”

The video skips in the window, rolls twice before it syncs up again, and when it does Jim has a different stack of papers spread across his desk, reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. “So you’re saying no one has told you about the not-so-blind item Blankenship posted about you last week, calling you out as closeted? And no one has mentioned these pictures,” Jim sighs, bodily, and holds up a grainy image obviously printed from a shady gossip site somewhere. “Of you two stumbling out of a club looking like a lot more than buddies?”

Tyler stares down at his hands. They feel like boat anchors and yet somehow completely ineffectual at the same time. Like they want to do something about this, but don’t know how. He, the he with a working brain and mouth, doesn’t know what to do either. Because it’s all too close to the truth and while he’s not ready, may never be ready, to talk about it publicly, he doesn’t have it in him to lie about it now, not with Dylan sitting next to him.

Dylan, apparently, has zero problem speaking his mind. His elbow catches against Tyler’s armrest when he rocks forward in his chair, pink behind the ears and jaw muscles jumping. “Dude,” he says, voice laced with his own brand of venom. “ _Not_ cool.” And in a twist of ridiculous symmetry, his fingertips twitch against the touchpad, pointer hovering over the end button for a moment before he adds, “I think we’re done here,” and clicks to disconnect the session.

A ding sounds from the speakers, and an icon spins on the screen, asking if they want to reconnect. Dylan snaps the lid shut.

“I totally just made things worse, didn’t I?”

And Tyler can’t.

There are so many things he _can’t_ deal with right now. Most of them involve Dylan. His ridiculous face and his heart the size of a freaking gas giant. How Tyler has maybe been a little in love with him for a long, long, _long_ time. So long, in fact, Holland will die laughing when he tells her, if he tells her.

Mostly though, it’s how Dylan’s obviously not interested.

Tyler can’t.

So he leaves.

 

* * *

 

Russell mutters all the time. To himself, to his computer, and once, memorably and at length, to Crystal’s dog.

He’s a champion mutterer, proving the stereotype for every cranky Aussie who’s ever been born.

Except when he’s between action and cut.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Russell mutters. “ _Cut!_ ”

Dylan’s shoulders slump, his standard Stilesian slouch slipping into one of defeat. Tyler wants nothing more than to offer comfort, to shove at Dylan’s shoulder and jostle him out of his funk, but he doesn’t know if he can anymore. His hands are still propped where they’re supposed to be - one wrapped around the side of Dylan’s neck, thumb tucked under his jaw, the other dug into the bark of the tree Dylan’s leaning against.

And he feels like he’s back at Truman, at his seventh grade dance, doing his best to guide Joy Bledsoe around the room without tripping over his feet. Or hers.

He hated it then. He hates it more, now, being awkward. Chemistry is part of what he’s paid for. His with Dylan, normally effortless as breathing, has been a nightmare all day. And while some of what they shot warranted it - particularly the stilted post-kiss pack scene - this doesn’t.

Guilt churns in his gut and Tyler realizes, belatedly, he’s still touching. He snatches his hands back too fast, scraping his knuckle open in the process.

Dylan sets his jaw, stormclouds brewing in his narrowed eyes, on his furrowed brow, and he doesn’t bother to spare a glance for Russell when he asks for ten minutes. Russell waves them away with a grunt.

“Come with me,” Dylan says. His fingers are steel in the bend of Tyler’s elbow, and Tyler lets Dylan drag him halfway across set, until the flimsy fiberglass door of Tyler’s trailer slams shut behind them, leaving them alone. Tyler gets all the way to seven before Dylan flinches, releasing the grip on his arm to card his fingers through his hair. Dylan knows Beth will give him shit for it. Knows and does it anyway.

Dylan heaves a sigh, and Tyler steels himself for the onslaught. He deserves it. Welcomes it even.

What he gets instead is an apology.

“Sorry,” Dylan says. “I shouldn’t have, y’know. Put hands on you like that.” If Tyler were Dylan, he’d smirk slyly and joke about where exactly Dylan can put his hands. But he’s not. “You just drive me crazy, sometimes.” Dylan shoves past him, shoulders bumping in the confined space, and throws himself at the couch. He scratches at the stupid fruit punch stain on the cushion, and the sound of his nails against the fabric puts Tyler on edge.

“What?” Tyler says, and stares but doesn’t sit.

“I just wish you’d deal with shit, man.” The last word nearly gets lost in a yawn and the pressure of Dylan’s ribcage against his lungs. Because he’s stretching - arms thrown back, mouth soft and wide - and skin peers back at Tyler, the dark fuzz of Dylan’s happy trail taunting him from the gap between Stiles’ novelty t-shirt and rumpled green pants.

At least he catches himself before Dylan does and averts his eyes.

“What am I supposed to be dealing with, exactly?” Tyler asks, because he honestly has no idea what Dylan thinks this is about.

“The interview.” Dylan shrugs as if it was a given, then swings his legs around to kick his heels up on one arm of the couch, rests his head against the other. Now there’s a bare flank to contend with, the suggestion of a hip bone where Dylan’s pants ride low. Tyler couldn’t say if the arm tossed over his face makes matters better or worse. “I know you’re not comfortable with the assumptions about your orientation and stuff...”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Tyler says, certain of that much, at least. Not that he doesn’t appreciate Dylan’s grand gesture, earlier. But it was unnecessary - a flying leap to his defense that only confirmed this isn’t all a figment of Tyler’s imagination. Because in that moment, he wanted Dylan for himself more than ever. The loyalty. The unwillingness to let someone he cares about suffer a slight. That moment showed him, once and for all, just how little their characters play into the actual attraction, even though they may have been the catalyst. Tyler shoves his hands in his pockets to prevent them from grabbing, taking without permission.

“Then tell me what the fuck’s going on, Ty.” Eyes flashing bright again, Dylan glares at him for a long moment before his expression softens. “Not that I don’t enjoy the company, but I really want to go home and sleep.”

“Can I just say it’s personal and you drop it?”

Dylan snorts, flicking at a piece of lint on his sleeve. “Are you new here?”

“D,” he starts, rethinks and stops. But Dylan is looking at him, all wide-eyed faux innocence, like he expects an actual explanation. It stirs Tyler to action, finally, and he skirts away from the door, abandoning the easy escape route and shuffles stuff around on his make-up table. He’s not ready to have this conversation. So not ready. “Dylan. Look, I just need. I can’t. I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“I get it, I do,” Dylan says, levering himself back up, elbows to knees and fingers steepled together beneath his chin. “And normally, I’d be all for letting you do your thang at your own pace. But I can’t trudge through this scene six more times.”

Tyler braces himself against the counter and stares down the stranger in the mirror, mostly because he can’t look at Dylan. Doing this, playing at being something more to him for the cameras, it’s agony. It will get better. Just like it got better with Lizzie. But for now, it’s a slow knife to the gut and he wishes, not for the first time, he didn’t fall so fast, so hard, so completely once he lets himself. “Like I can?” he mutters, gaze flicking quickly to a picture he’s got tacked in the corner of his mirror. Dylan and Posey climbing all over him, grinning like idiots.

“So what the hell, dude? You’re a professional. Be professional.”

“I’m _trying_.” But you make it impossible, Tyler thinks, and finally perches on the chair tucked up against the counter with a sigh of his own.

“Well, try harder.” Anger flares in Dylan’s eyes again, and Tyler feels it in his bones. “Talk to me. Tell me what you need.”

“What I need?” The words echo strangely, hollow and faraway. His ears are ringing or something, the sound muted.

“Yes,” Dylan hisses.

“Fuck, D...”

“Oh my god, dude. It’s not that dire, seriously,” Dylan says, then he’s up, pacing back and forth six inches from Tyler’s shoulder until he stops suddenly, and Tyler can feel the weight of his attention. “ _Seriously_?” he spits, and Tyler can’t help but look.

Dylan is both singular and singularly impossible, and Tyler has never lasted long in the face of his true resolve. Maybe he misunderstood. Maybe Dylan didn’t mean to imply what he implied. Could be there’s plenty of reason to hope.

“You. Okay?” he says, loud as he dares. The words hurt, heart hammering in his chest like he just thundered through mile twenty-two of a marathon. Reason doesn’t matter, and he’ll deal with however Dylan responds the best way he knows. If it means not feeling like this anymore, Tyler would skywrite it for him. “What I need--I want...you. That’s why this is all. Yeah. Tonight.”

“Like, me as in, me.” Dylan slaps a palm against his chest and stumbles back, away from Tyler, fishmouthing around the words, lost. “I. You. What?”

“If you have ever given a shit about me,” Dylan does and probably still will after this, and Tyler can’t even parse what he’s trying to say, how the hell could Dylan make sense of it? Clearly, he was right the first time, and if that’s the case... “Please, don’t make me explain,” he says.

“You mean?”

“I mean,” Tyler says, squaring his shoulders. If he’s meant to meet this tonight, he’ll do it on his own terms. He’s not embarrassed or confused or worried about the whole guy _thing_. The only part of this madness that bothers him at all is whether or not Dylan wants him back. Whether or not this will be Lizzie made over.

Dylan shakes himself, arms thrown wide as he flops back onto the couch hard enough it creaks in protest. “No,” he says, simply. “Just, no. You’re not...you’ve never.” Then his fingers are buried in his hair again, the heels of his hands fitted to the hollows of his eye sockets. And Tyler can’t quite breathe right, his air keeps getting caught halfway. “Ty, man, this is Derek. Not you. Though I guess you have an epic crush on Stiles, too. But I’m not him, he’s not me.”

“That’s not what this...”

“Character bleed is a thing.” Dylan interrupts him without thought, voice high and tight. “There’s evidence.”

“It’s not character bleed.” _Trust me, I know_ , Tyler wants to say, to scream, and he feels the admission changing them already, despite his best efforts. Normally, he’d just say it without worrying about how Dylan might interpret the thing he had for Liz. But at this point, storytime would probably do more harm than good.

“See, I know you think that. I understand _why_ you think that.”

“You think I’m delusional.”

“No, of course not,” Dylan says and shoves himself up again, moving, always moving. Like he can’t bear to sit still and process. The guy can fall asleep slumped sideways on a concrete bench, but thinking, reacting, apparently requires perpetual motion that makes him a continuity nightmare. Tyler picks at a snag in the roughspun upholstery and relegates himself to quick glances so the back and forth doesn’t make him sick.“Je--fuck.” The door rattles in its frame when Dylan’s fist finds it. “Fuck. All of this, the publicity, the interviews, being steeped in it the way you’ve been. Of course, it’s going to influence you. Probably in ways you don’t even understand.”

“Please shut up.” There’s only so long Tyler can take being told how he feels, and while Dylan may not mean to condescend, Tyler’s nerves are stretched to breaking. “I already knew...”

“Knew what?”

 _Knew I wanted more a long time ago. Even when I was ignoring it. Being stubborn._ is what Tyler thinks, but what he says is, “It doesn’t matter.

“Of course it fucking does.” Furious and flushed, Dylan turns on him, hair tufting wildly where he’s pulled at it and his shoulders creeping ever closer to his ears. “You think I don’t--that this doesn’t matter to me? I can’t. We’re going to have to figure this out.”

“What is there to figure out?” Tyler says, schooling himself and his tone on instinct, to soothe Dylan because he doesn’t deserve this unexpected font of feelings spilling into his wheelhouse. If he wants to chalk it up to character bleed to give himself an easy out, Tyler has no right to contradict it. “I just need...time,” he finishes eventually, beseeching, and scrubs a hand across his face to try and slough off enough baggage they can lock the scene.

“To do what?” Dylan squawks, lunging into the scant space that separates them, and Tyler actually gives ground, pushing himself up out of the chair and clear of Dylan’s advance. “To have some existential crisis?” At least until he takes another step. “To realize you actually went temporarily insane?” And another.

This close, Tyler can feel the warm puff of breath on his cheek, see the shimmery sheen in Dylan’s eyes he’d probably rather hide. “Why are you yelling at me?” he asks, careful and calm, quiet because there’s obviously something going on here, another conversation he’s not privy to.

“Because you can’t just _do_ this.” Dylan’s hands land, tangling in his shirt, Derek’s shirt, tugging the henley out of shape. He looks, no, feels scared, spooked, and Tyler hates knowing this is his fault. Hates it. “It’s not right.”

“Didn’t ask for it,” Tyler says, because even now he can’t deny, even for Dylan’s sake. But maybe if he makes Dylan believe it’s a temporary flight of fancy, he’ll eventually learn to believe it too.

“Of course you didn’t. Why would you?” Dylan mutters bitterly, and then he’s whirling away again. “Fucking fuckbirds in a fig tree. I can’t do this right now. I need to be a place that is not here. Where you are not.”

“The door is right there.”

Dylan rushes for it, a flurry of Stiles’ plaid and limbs, his face splotchy and movements stilted, jerky. When he yanks the door open, Russell’s standing on the other side with his hand raised to knock.

“We’re wrapping for the night,” he says, and if he overheard anything he’s not letting on. “I’m pushing this scene to Monday. Get your heads right before then or we’re going to have a problem. And I don’t like problems.”

As quickly as he’d appeared, Russell’s gone, and then it’s just Tyler and Dylan and the yawning grey haze of night beyond the open door.

“I can’t be what you think you need,” Dylan says, head bowed, his anger held in the set of his shoulders. “I don’t--I’m not equipped to do that. Like ever.”

“Just go.”


	7. Chapter 7

For the next two days, Tyler only sees Dylan in passing.

It’s odd in the way it isn’t.

The kids -- who are so definitely _not_ kids anymore it’s laughable -- have daytime stuff to shoot. He and Ian, with a bonus JR, apparently have nighttime lurking to do. Two full days of second unit in a row may be uncommon, but not unheard of. Even so, they don’t cross paths. No high fives in the parking lot when they’re walking opposite directions. And Tyler hasn’t come back from make-up to find Dylan drooling on his pillows like he doesn’t have a perfectly good set in his own trailer.

Okay, it’s a little odd. Or would be if Tyler didn’t know why.

Which, of course, makes this the perfect weekend to host the cast. Bonfire and barbeque, he said. It’ll be great, he said. We can get faded and go skinny dipping, Posey said.

In theory, it sounds like a great escape after the week he’s had.

In truth, Posey and Dylan are suspiciously absent, and Tyler’s sprawled in front of the dying fire like a beached whale, nursing his third beer. Brooding, Holland says in his head, like the damn Highlander wandering the moors. Laughter filters up from the water’s edge, carried by the balmy night breeze. He listens to it, lets it roll over him and watches the embers flare as the wind kisses them gold. A new log lands on the pile, a gnarled length that looks like driftwood but isn’t. Tyler only knows because he bought it.

“I’m not opposed to dragging you into the ocean, you know.” Linden groans and settles in beside Tyler when he doesn’t answer, then wraps his arms around his knees. His features glow in the firelight, blue eyes bright but trained beyond the flames, at least for now. “You didn’t have to do this if you weren’t feeling up to it, Heck. You know that right?”

“I do,” he mutters, levering himself up to mirror Linden. The only difference is the beer dangling from his fingertips. Tyler digs his toes in the sand and takes an eager sip although he knows he’s been holding it long enough now for it to have gone warm and flat. “It was my turn,” he says, by way of explanation. “Not going to screw up the streak because I’m an idiot.”

“You’re so far from being an idiot, kid,” Linden stops for a second, face tilted back to the night sky before he chuckles quietly. “In all the ways that count, you’re a genius.”

“I’m really not.” The beer doesn’t taste any better on a second sip, and Tyler breaks down, reaches to collect fresh one. He offers Linden a bottle that gets waved off.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Top popped, Tyler tosses the cap back at the cooler, hears it clink against the plastic then the ice. “Not really,” he says and tilts the bottle back for a long, cool, satisfying swig. “But I think I need to. Maybe.”

“Should I track Holland down?” Linden seems willing either way, and Tyler would rather he stayed. Gloating he could probably handle, but not the pity that will inevitably follow. Holland’s too close, too invested.

“She’ll just give me shit,” he mutters, sucking another pull off his bottle. It isn’t really an answer, but must sound like one since Linden shifts, leans back on his hands to get more comfortable. There’s ash smeared across his cheekbone

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she was right.” Tyler sighs and feels instantly lighter, weightless with the admission, veiled as it is. There’s no way Linden could possibly know what he’s talking about and it’s better that way, somehow. “The whole time, she was right.”

“Ahh. So I take it this has something to do with why Dylan’s been extra twitchy this week.” A bug buzzes through the air between them, and Linden swats at it like it’s nothing, like he hasn’t just implied prior knowledge of Tyler having a gigantic hard-on for Linden’s surrogate son. “Or why he suddenly had other plans tonight?”

In all of this, Tyler never even stopped to think how the _thing_ with Dylan might affect the rest of the cast.

“Fuck.” The word spills unwilling from his lips, soft and sharp. “Is it really that obvious?”

“Son, I just know where to look,” Linden says and smiles, clapping him on the shoulder. “People forget Susan and I met on set.”

“Right.”

Quiet gathers between them, punctuated by the slap of waves against the beach, the shriek and splash of someone finally, inevitably going in the water. Linden doesn’t push and Tyler doesn’t offer to elaborate. Apparently, there’s no need.

It will get better. He’ll learn to live with the loss of what might have been, what he barely contemplated having. And once the last of his stupidity has blown over, he and Dylan can try to patch the holes he so ham-handedly knocked in the hull of their friendship. Things will probably never be the same.

“So, he finally told you.”

For a second, Linden hunches in on himself, stretching his back, and casts the scraps of the label he’s peeled off Tyler’s discarded beer into the fire.

“I don’t--what?” Tyler rewinds, mentally, and still doesn’t quite understand, so he repeats, “What?”

“Dylan finally came clean. About his feelings. For you.” Brow furrowed, Linden turns to look at him, golden glow of the bonfire casting half his face in shadow. All Tyler can do is blink. “Am I suddenly speaking French here?”

“Dylan doesn’t--he’s not. He said...” But he didn’t say, really, did he? He didn’t talk about himself at all.

“Holy shitballs.” Linden rubs at the lines creasing his forehead, and chuckles, mostly to himself. “Okay. It seems I grossly overestimated the depth of my wisdom.”

“You’re saying he does?” Which makes zero sense. Less than. None. Zilch.

“Didn’t hear it from me, but yeah. For years now. His angst about it waxes and wanes like the ever-loving moon, but given recent developments, he’s been more anxious about it all. Afraid he’s going to ‘vomit his feelings all over you’. His words.”

Tyler’s chest constricts, and he coughs at the smoke swirling in his face when the wind shifts. Truthfully, he’s just fighting to keep his breathing under control so he can ask the one truly important question.

“Why didn’t he say anything?”

“What would he say?” Linden shrugs then settles his chin in the curve of his hand, those sharp eyes searching, trained on Tyler’s features. “You’re Johnny All-American. He didn’t want to fuck the friendship up with feelings. Especially when he had no reason to hope they’d be returned.”

Tyler can’t swallow the involuntary peal of laughter that shakes through him, or the one that follows, and he can feel Linden staring, sand grinding against his scalp when he falls back against the beach. Holland appears briefly over Linden’s shoulder before she shakes her head and disappears into the house.

The shape of Linden’s expression changes, mouth gone tight at the corners. He looks half a second away from calling the authorities or dumping the cooler water in Tyler’s lap to sober him up. Tyler gasps his way back to reason, his eyes watering and ribs sore. It’s a fight, but he gets there. Eventually.

Linden snatches his beer when Tyler reaches for it. “I think you’ve had enough.”

“I’m fine,” Tyler says, voice shot half to hell. “Seriously. I’m just a living, breathing Gift of the Magi. Apparently. Okay, not really. But close enough.”

“I don’t...”

A poppyseed bun materializes in his hand, complete with a re-heated bratwurst and plenty of mustard. Holland hovers just in his line of sight, toes nudging at his shoulder like she wants him to do something. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tyler. Sit up. Choking is not attractive and if I know anything about you, you’re going to need your mouth tonight. Here,” she says, and shoves a water bottle in his empty hand. “Finish that, and this.” A second bottle of water. “And you can go.”

Linden squints at him, then Holland, and looks like he’s seriously considering heading back down the beach, when Holland rolls her eyes and flops down alongside him.

“Our dear Hoechlin is so gone on Dylan he can’t see straight,” she explains, and Linden relaxes back on his elbows, giving into a chuckle or two of his own.

“So I’m a good Samaritan,” he says. “Not a bumbling dumbass who jumps to the wrong conclusions.”

Tapping at her lips, Holland hums and says, “I think in this case, maybe you’re both.” Linden may growl at her, or he may laugh, but Tyler tunes them out. Satisfying Holland’s misplaced mothering tendencies is more important than catching snatches of murmured small talk. Hell, getting out and on the road is priority one, right now.

Because this is real.

This is real, and Dylan owes him answers.

 

* * *

 

Under ideal conditions, Tyler considers himself a thoughtful, if sometimes overly-defensive, driver with a middling case of lead-foot. Not that he’s immune to distractions, really, or uncertain of his skill. There’s a time and place to play daredevil, and the congested city streets of greater Los Angeles are a far cry from the off-road runs south of Atlanta. The wrong six inches can kill you anywhere, but if he’s gonna go, Tyler would rather it not be at the hands of a rampaging food truck.

That being said.

Half an hour after he slams back the last swig of water Holland demanded, Tyler finds himself standing at the courtyard gate outside Dylan’s building with no recollection of how he got there. Early evening on a Saturday, though not as horrible as rush hour, is the worst time to try to get anywhere fast in LA. Somehow he managed to shave ten minutes off the normal drive time.

As long as no one turns up dead.

When he jabs at the button next to Dylan’s name, the speaker screeches at him between bursts of static, and it takes conscious effort on his part to resist leaning on it harder, to wait patiently until the feedback fades. Probably because he’s still feeling the beer a little more than he should.

“I know you’re home, D,” Tyler says once it quiets. “Can I come up? Please?”

Curtains flutter on the second floor, the light from Dylan’s living room spilling brighter across the cobblestone for a second as a shadow passes behind the sheers. Tyler wraps his hand around the wrought iron to steady his nerves, and gets a noseful of the neighbor’s overgrown star jasmine for his efforts. The scent kicks his memory, an echo of those nights in New Orleans, and if he hadn’t already met his daily quota of hysterical laughter, it would be enough to send him careening off the deep-end.

Patience, hard-won and earned, is the only reason he’s holding it together at all. That and the hope Linden’s careless words kindled in his chest.

Except Dylan still hasn’t answered.

This time, the buzzer sounds like a really pissed off cockatoo.

“I’ll sit out here all night if I have to,” he says, shouting into the mic now because sometimes Dylan’s a stubborn ass, and he might have slapped his headphones on after the first round. “Better yet, I’ll just have this conversation with your window. I’m sure the cops will only mind arresting me for drunk and disorderly half as much as you’ll enjoy coming to bail me out.”

The button snaps back, plastic creaking in the brass housing, and Tyler picks at the chicken-scratched rectangle of cardboard beside it. Waiting. Hoping.

Static crackles again as the speaker comes to life, Dylan’s voice drifting down the wires.

“Doesn’t look to me like you’re hosting a party,” Dylan says, words quick and clipped, like he’s annoyed.

Of course he’s annoyed.

Tyler laughs in spite of himself and punches the button again. “Holland took over as mistress of ceremonies. Now can I please come up?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to talk to you.”

“About?”

“About things I’d rather not tell the entire neighborhood,” Tyler says. “But I will if that’s the way you want to play it.”

Five seconds later, the electronic lock on the gate releases, and Tyler bursts through it. Before it even has a chance to latch, he’s got a foot on the bottom stair. Each footfall sounds heavy, the pound of his shoes against the slab marking time with his heartbeat. Dylan’s propped in his open door when Tyler crests the final step, and while his features are carefully neutral, there’s tension in his shoulders, his arms folded across his chest.

“So your phone’s dead, I guess?” Dylan says. The corner of his mouth twitches without actually pulling down, but he’s as closed off as Tyler has ever seen him.

Now that he’s here, Wednesday night comes crashing back in blazing Technicolor. Dylan ran, fled from him like a spooked fawn from an honest-to-god wolf. Which, naturally, makes this grand gesture more transgressive than sweet.

And Tyler feels like ten kinds of shit.

“I can go,” Tyler says, because as much as he wants to be here, he likes to believe he’s not a complete ass. “I didn’t think.” A sigh escapes entirely without his permission, quiet and pained. Tyler risks leaning back against the half wall that acts as a railing, even as he trains his eyes on the wedge of cobalt tile caught between Dylan’s socked feet. “I just. I got excited. I should’ve called, I know. But I don’t even remember getting on the 405, much less getting off. I wanted to see you. So we could talk. About things.”

When Tyler looks up, Dylan must see the contrition cast in his features, because he thaws slightly, chest heaving with a sigh of his own. “Well, since you’re already here, you might as well come in,” he mutters, then shuffles into the apartment, leaving the door ajar.

On the outside, Tyler manages to maintain his cool.

Inside, well, that’s another story, and he feels blessed to have solid wood at his back when he closes that same door behind him.

Dylan paces from foyer to living room and back again, restless. Eventually, he lights on the arm of his overstuffed sofa, and while Tyler aches to move closer, he keeps his feet firmly planted, his posture loose, non-threatening.

“So?” Dylan prompts, and his hand pulls some complicated maneuver before it comes to rest against his thigh, fingers tapping. “Talk.”

Beginnings suck, except when they don’t. They’re beautiful and magical and so damned fragile Tyler feels lost, fumbling in a way he usually wouldn’t because he’s blind to Dylan’s reasons, his motivation. For all the things he can’t fix, that’s one he can.

So, he starts. Quietly. Carefully.

“Why did you leave the other night?”

Dylan scrubs a hand across his face then drags it through his hair. “Because I couldn’t be there anymore.”

“Okay.” Tyler says, and tugs at the hem of his shirt for lack of anything better to do with his hands. “But why couldn’t you be there?”

Dylan snorts, folding into himself more fully, chin tucked tight against his shoulder. “I don’t expect you to understand,” he mutters. “I just _couldn’t_.”

“Help me understand,” Tyler pleads. “I want to. So fucking much. Dylan, please.”

Suddenly there’s an edge to Dylan again, reluctance replaced with steel. “Fuck you, dude,” he grits out. “I don’t owe you that.”

“You don’t.” Tyler raises a placating palm, aching to move closer, to offer comfort. Clearly his tactics failed to meet muster. “You’re right. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Damn straight.”

“So let me tell you why I’m here,” Tyler says. “Tonight of all nights. When I really should be at home protecting my liquor cabinet from JR.”

Dylan waves him on. “By all means.”

“Because I’m pretty sure I’m a dumbass.” He is. So much of one he can only hope to earn forgiveness. “And I’m sorry for being so stubborn for so long. I wanted to apologize to you for that.”

Across the room, Dylan shifts, leather creaking when his weight resettles. His eyes narrow, lips tightening like he’s about to say something, but he lets his hands speak for him, gesturing for Tyler to continue.

Truth be told, there are a thousand ways to dance around this, to come clean without baring everything. But Tyler’s beyond done with the uncertain two-step routine. “I’m in love with you,” he says, simply and firmly to the floor.

“Tyler--” Dylan says, abandoning his perch to edge closer, his hand extended.

“Not might be, or may be,” Tyler continues, reckless because Dylan’s coming to him. To him.

“Tyler, stop--” There’s only a couple of feet between them now, and Tyler risks glancing up, catching and holding Dylan’s gaze. For all Linden’s assurances to the contrary, Dylan looks pained. Too late to back out now, though. Much too late.

“But like, have been and am,” Tyler says, forcing each word past his lips, as quickly as he can because he needs Dylan to hear them. “I could be so in love with you, if you’d just let me.”

“Jesus fucking--stop!” Dylan shouts, and he’s close enough to touch, his ears bright red and chest heaving. “I can’t be your experiment, man. Whatever sexual awakening you think you’re having, whatever late-onset identity crisis you’re caught in the middle of, I can’t be _that_ guy. I’ve been that guy before. And I can’t, for you. I fucking can’t.”

“D--” Instinct makes Tyler reach out, but Dylan jerks himself out of range.

“Please don’t,” he says, arms crossed again, this time over his stomach.

“Just tell me one thing. One.” Tyler raises both hands, slowly, palms out. “Then I’m gone if that’s what you want.”

“What?”

“Why?” Tyler asks, quiet and careful, shuffling forward a step Dylan doesn’t mirror. “Why did you leave? Why can’t you be that guy? Which, by the way, I never asked you to be. Just, why?”

Dylan shoves both hands through his hair, and it tufts up wildly.“Because I love you, asshat.” He pokes a finger at Tyler’s chest then snatches it back like it burned. “I’ve loved you since you started re-stocking my trailer with Skittles. Since you learned my stupid coffee order, all six of them. Since you instituted pancake Saturdays even though you sat across the table from me and Posey eating your egg white omelets like they were the best thing ever. Since you let me drool all over your pillows and didn’t say shit about it. Since you looked out for me and believed in me and gave me hell for not doing the same. And I can’t do _you_ half-assed, Ty. I can’t.”

“When have I ever done anything half-assed?” Tyler says and reaches again, relieved when his hands fall to rest on Dylan’s shoulders and he doesn’t shrug the contact off.

“Right.” Dylan snorts, knuckling at his upper lip fitfully. “Because this isn’t some scheme your publicist cooked up to capitalize on the Charity buzz. The paps don’t follow us around, man,” he says, and when he makes eye contact again, he looks like he’s in agony. No, like he’s resigned to being in silent agony forever. “We’re not big enough to make a fuss over. And that Blankenship thing was so fucking fishy.”

“One, you’re definitely big enough to draw the paps.” Tyler smiles, and Dylan huffs a desperate, shaky little laugh. “Two, Chloe would kill me if she found out I was here.”

“So why are you?” Dylan says, shoulders hunched against the expected blow, still.

Tyler squeezes Dylan’s shoulder, feels the muscle twitch and go tight before he shifts his grip. It’s awkward, but his life is always awkward and there are worse fates than worrying about whether or not Dylan would welcome a hug if Tyler pulled him in for one. “Because I can’t do this anymore. In Holland’s words, I’m so gone on you I can’t see straight.”

“You told Holland?”

“Holland told _me_ ,” Tyler says. “Repeatedly. For going on a year now, she has berated me about getting my head out of my ass at least a dozen times.”

“But you’re not--you’ve never. You’re not.”

“What do they say about assumptions?”

“Ugh.” Dylan scrubs at his face again, eyes shut tight. “I literally spent hours venting at you about this shit.”

“You never asked.” Tyler admits, honest now for better or worse, and surrenders his grip on Dylan, knowing instinctively he shouldn’t push. “I wouldn’t appropriate your experience like that, anyway. What business do I have staking any claim to your coming out party? Or worse yet, pretending I knew what you were going through when I hadn’t so much as admitted an attraction to another guy out loud?”

“Why do you always have to be so fucking nice?” Dylan’s fist finds Tyler’s chest, but there’s no heat behind the blow and his fingers uncurl almost instantly to wind into Tyler’s shirt.

“I don’t know?”

A smile quirks at the corners of Dylan’s mouth. “Look. I’m ridiculous. You’re obviously super ridiculous. We’re both ridiculous and I hate us so much right now.”

“Not what I was going for, but okay...”

“Part of the reason I--” Dylan starts, then thinks better of it. “No, you know what? It doesn’t matter. Not even a little.” The distance between them disappears and Tyler watches Dylan’s limbs go liquid as he relaxes, his face glowing in the dying light filtering in through the curtains. Beautiful. “Do I need to call Holland or can I trust you’re not fucking with me?”

“You can trust me, but if it’ll make you feel better I’ll even dial.”

Tomorrow, Tyler will blame the lack of coordination on the fact he actually goes for his phone. His thumb snags in his pocket when he tries to jerk it free, but apparently Dylan doesn’t care. One-armed catches of an entire person are nearly impossible even when you’re expecting them, and he sure as hell doesn’t expect Dylan.

His back slams against the door, and it creaks in its frame with the impact, the weight of both their bodies. And Dylan, Dylan’s pressed against him in all the right places, palm slapped against the smooth wood just to the left of Tyler’s head. Close, so close Tyler can almost taste, and the bottom falls out of his stomach, every nerve suddenly alive and alight with Dylan.

“I think I have better things to do with my mouth,” Dylan says, and it’s so predictably cheesy, so completely Dylan, Tyler outright laughs. But every time his ribs flex with it, he can feel Dylan’s heat bleeding through the threadbare tank top Tyler threw on as he was leaving, and the laughter dies quickly on his lips.

They’ve rough-housed before. Slept in the same bed. Passed out on the couch playing Halo. Huddled for warmth when parkas weren’t getting the job done. They’ve spent so much time inside each other’s personal space both on-set and off, this shouldn’t be any different.

But it is.

Dylan’s features blur as he sways closer, then sharpen when he sways away. Of all things, he looks uncertain of his welcome, and Tyler wraps him up, tugs him in, because there’s no reason not to.

“This okay?” Tyler murmurs, quiet as he can and still be heard. Dylan shifts, sighs, and then his face disappears altogether, his chin rubbing lazily against the side of Tyler’s neck.

“I don’t know,” he says, lower lip catching at the hinge of Tyler’s jaw in a way that turns Tyler a little breathless and a lot helpless. “Are _you_ okay? Not going to sprain something trying to backpedal?”

“Why on earth would I do that?”

“Acting on a thing is different from wanting to.”

“Haven’t actually acted on it, have I?” Tyler says, but he does drag a hand down Dylan’s side, anxious to touch, to prove himself and his intentions. Nothing they haven’t already done dozens of times, albeit with cameras turned on them. Dylan shudders and groans, fingers twisting in the back of Tyler’s shirt.“Technically, neither have you. Your mouth is still doing what it always does.”

The thump of Dylan’s head on his shoulder feels like victory. And Tyler takes a chance, cautious as he is determined when he tucks in and scrapes his cheek against the side of Dylan’s neck.

“Did you seriously just challenge me,” Dylan slurs out against his skin. “Because we both know how that ends.”

Relief floods in, smoothing over all Tyler’s rough edges. Because Dylan sounds normal again. “Maybe I did. Maybe I’m waiting for you to ravage me with your alleged years of pent up desire.”

“Maybe I’m still not sure.”

Tyler freezes, hands stilling on the wings of Dylan’s sharp shoulder blades. “Seriously, I can go,” he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut as Dylan moves again, knee between Tyler’s knees. And the last thing Tyler wants is to be anywhere other than right here, but this is not just about him. “If you don’t want me here. Or hell, if you just don’t want _me_ now that you’re allowed to act on it, I’ll go. Nothing has to change.”

“It does, though. You have no idea, T,” Dylan says, traces of bitter clinging to the sweet, like loving Tyler has hurt for a long time and he’s not sure what to do now that it doesn’t have to. “But please stop trying to leave,” he mutters, then his jaw sets, and he draws back suddenly, the press of his lips silencing any apology Tyler could dream of offering.

And it’s perfect.

This isn’t Stiles he’s kissing. Or Stiles kissing him. It doesn’t matter if the camera angles are off or if his face is in half in shadow. Dylan is a different animal entirely, certain of his skill and the way they fit together. He doesn’t fumble or fidget or do anything but steal the air from Tyler’s lungs, demanding participation. So Tyler does, pulls Dylan flush against him, digs his knuckles into the small of Dylan’s back and kisses him until his brain shuts off. The tip of Dylan’s tongue traces the roof of his mouth, drawing lazy looping patterns. Dylan’s hands are in constant motion, roving with purpose, finding each hot spot unerringly, learning the line of Tyler’s ribs and the sensitive ridges of collarbone. Finally, they still, Dylan’s thumbs tucked behind his ears, stroking almost absently. There’s possession in it, greed, a quiet desperation at odds with the hypnotic motion of Dylan’s lips. Like he’s afraid to stop for fear it’s all been a dream.

Tyler breaks away to catch his breath, head tilted back and sucking down air. Dylan chuckles and props his temple against Tyler’s upturned chin.

“You have sand in your hair,” Dylan says, smile blinding and brilliant and kiss-flushed when Tyler finally glances down again. He leans into Dylan, into the fingers moving roughly from the nape of his neck and up, kicking loose the grains.

“I was drowning my sorrows,” he answers, because that much truth is easy to part with.

Dylan’s expression shifts, confusion there and gone again before his eyes turn soft and fond. “Mourning me?”

“Yes.”

“So what changed?”

“Linden,” Tyler says, pulling gently at Dylan’s earlobe just to watch his lashes flutter and droop low. Because he can. The knowledge hits him, a gut punch of joy fizzing in his veins. Apparently, he’s not freaking out about this. Not the guy thing. Not even the Dylan thing. And that--Tyler coughs and tries to finish his thought before he loses it. “I was talking to him about, y’know. He was apparently having an entirely different conversation.”

Dylan snorts. “Remind me to send him a fruit basket in the morning,” he says, beginning to unwind his limbs and pull away.

Tyler feels every centimeter of space Dylan puts between them, and clenches his fist, props it against his thigh to keep himself from dragging Dylan back in. For a single heart-stopping second, he thinks he’s about to get kicked out, but then fingers band around his wrist, tugging him through the living room and down the hall, and Dylan’s words loop right back around, finally landing like they should have the first time.

“In the morning?”

Dylan tosses a grin back over his shoulder and shifts his grip to tangle their fingers together. It feels right, good, and something inside, something Tyler never suspected or realized was missing, snicks into place.

“If you think I’m going to let you just waltz out of here without getting my mouth all over you, you’ve got another thing coming.” Dylan stops abruptly, pulling up centimeters short of his bedroom. The back of his neck goes suddenly, shockingly pink. “I mean, unless that’s not something you want.”

“I _want_ ,” Tyler grits out, tugging on Dylan’s hand to reel him in. “I definitely want.” This time, Tyler throws himself into the kiss, backs Dylan up against the door frame and licks into his mouth with abandon, turns over his doubt and desire, gives it to Dylan. And Dylan takes it, all of it, slinging an arm around Tyler’s neck to hold him in place.

They’re breathing hard when they finally part, but Dylan seems loathe to waste any more time, leaning in to nuzzle and nip at Tyler’s neck while they both find their way back to normal. And Tyler, at least, thinks it may be a lost cause because he’s half hard already just from kissing Dylan, his skin tingling everywhere Dylan has laid hands. He should be awkward, uncomfortable not knowing what to do, how this works with another guy. But this is Dylan and it feels right to press closer, to shift his hips into the cradle of Dylan’s, seeking friction. It feels right when Dylan gasps against his throat and bucks, his other arm slipping around Tyler’s waist to hold him there.

Everything feels right.

“There should be more nudity,” Dylan murmurs, lips catching stubble and making Tyler shudder. “So much more nudity.”

“Just in general, or...?”

“Don’t be a smartass.” Dylan’s hand slips lower, to pat at the swell of his ass, ironically, then squeeze, and Tyler can’t help the lazy drift of his eyelids when Dylan leans close to his ear and whispers, “I’ve waited years for this. Dreamed about it. Not gonna apologize for being eager now.”

Apologies, wonderful as they are, have no place here, and Tyler leans back, relinquishes the hold on Dylan’s hips he doesn’t remember taking, and strips his shirt off. It lands atop one of the misshapen piles on Dylan’s floor, and Tyler indulges himself, allows himself a moment to enjoy seeing it there. Dylan’s hands bring him back, his fingers exploring and mapping skin he’s seen a thousand times over like undiscovered territory. His tongue follows, his lips less than an inch from Tyler’s nipple when he says, “And the rest?”

“Maybe we should level the playing field first,” Tyler answers, nerves and want twisting together in his stomach until the words come out shaky, far more insubstantial than he’d like even as he plucks pointedly at the shoulder of Dylan’s t-shirt.

Dylan flushes again, rests his forehead against Tyler’s chest for a second then starts to reach. But Tyler stills his hands, presses a quick, fleeting kiss to the side of Dylan’s neck before getting his fingers beneath the hem. He takes his time to touch, thumbs at the waistband of Dylan’s jeans before he hauls the shirt up mostly with his wrists, loathe to relinquish the glide of Dylan’s skin against his palms before he has to. Dylan shivers and rears back, hips jostling against Tyler’s in a way that makes both of them groan, and Tyler tosses the shirt away.

“Jesus, Tyler.” Dylan says, happy and breathless, staring at him with the same wide-eyed adoration Tyler must have been dealing his direction for forever. No wonder Holland badgered him; he should have been more self aware. But then Dylan’s tugging at him again, drawing him further into the bedroom, and all thoughts of Holland are just gone when Dylan shoves him at the bed.

All the air gusts out of Tyler’s lungs, and before he can inhale, Dylan’s on him, toying restlessly with the knotted string holding his board shorts in place. Shorts he didn’t bother to change out of in his haste to get here. Dylan seems unsure again, teeth worrying at his lower lip. “Still okay?” he asks.

Dylan’s voice cracks, and everything is suddenly so ridiculous Tyler nudges Dylan’s hands out of the way, hooks his thumbs in the band and lifts his hips to shimmy out of the trunks without untying a damn thing. Because he’s eager too, for all this is new ground. He wants to see Dylan’s fingers wrapped around him, feel the sweet swell of Dylan’s lips against his hipbone, his stomach. Anywhere. Hell, Tyler’s practically giddy, wanting it, needing it. His dick slaps back against his belly, more than half-hard now with Dylan practically on top of him, so open and hungry.

Tyler expects to end up with a lapful any second, but Dylan surprises him, easing the shorts down his thighs slowly, almost reverently, bending to press a lingering kiss to the inside of Tyler’s knee that makes him groan and squirm. Jesus, that mouth. And Dylan only has eyes for him, even as he unbuckles his belt, lets it fall to the floor with a soft thump. Tyler feels bared in more than flesh and he shudders in sympathy when Dylan hisses, the button and zip of his jeans parting under clumsy fingers. When he shoves it off, socks and all, Tyler looks his fill , takes in the lean, lovely lines of him - the cut of his hipbones, the curve of his cock, the fine dusting of hair at his chest and groin, the smattering of moles he wants to taste. Gorgeous. It’s different, but the same. And as much as Tyler loves the shape of a woman, he can’t believe he gets to have this, to have Dylan.

Dylan’s wearing a smirk when Tyler finally focuses on his face again. “Fair is fair, right?” he says, scratching lazily at his happy trail and down into the coarse hair at the base of his dick. He grips himself unabashedly, strokes his length, his very impressive and slightly unnerving length, twice.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Tyler says, and it comes out like a grunt. “Will you get back over here?”

The corner of Dylan’s lips quirks up. “So impatient,” he says, but makes his way to the bed, anyway, perching shamelessly on Tyler’s thighs, warm and touchable and infinitely present, his toes hooked over the edge of the bed.

For his part, Tyler slams his eyes shut again, groping for his own cock blindly. Much as Tyler wants to devour him, Dylan’s nearness, the scent and weight of him is intoxicating as it is troubling because Tyler doesn’t know where they go from here.

Dylan makes the decision for him, with his hands and his knees and a subtle resettling. “C’mon, big guy,” he says, his voice so soft and fond Tyler wants to kiss the sound of it off his lips. “Sit up for me,” he says. And Tyler does, spreads one hand between Dylan’s shoulders, the other where his waist begins to flare, unable to keep himself from thumbing at the ridge of Dylan’s spine. Dylan’s back arches, hips shifting and throat exposed, and Tyler has never passed up an invitation so brazen in his life. So he laps at the tendons drawn taut beneath his tongue and lets Dylan burn through all of his senses.

“God, please let me,” Dylan says, and that’s all the warning Tyler gets before Dylan’s hand wraps around both their cocks, warm and slick with lube he doesn’t remember Dylan reaching for. In spite of how distracted he’s been, Tyler expects more of himself. He sure as hell doesn’t want to forget this, any of it. But then Dylan twists his wrist, draws his hand down slow and aching and Tyler knows he could never, would never. Pleasure lights up every last nerve ending, skin hot and too tight to bear, his stomach muscles flexing violently as he pitches forward, forehead landing hard on Dylan’s chest.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Tyler says again, brainless with Dylan bowed over him, lips pressed against his ear.

“I’ve got you, Ty,” Dylan says, hand in his hair, stroking it back, and Tyler moves with him, neck stretched and head tipped back again, far enough to meet Dylan’s eyes. And they’re full, overflowing with the inevitability of this moment, that this was what they were always meant to be. Trust and clarity shining through a staggering adoration, and Tyler swallows around the lump in his throat, fighting for breath and words but Dylan smiles down at him, and begins to move in earnest. “You just watch,” he whispers. “You’re doing so good. So fucking good.”

A secret thrill skitters through him at that, one he’ll examine later, much later. When it’s not his job to watch their cocks moving together in the circle of Dylan’s fingers. When he’s not so busy fucking up into the tight channel Dylan’s created and he can process beyond alternately chasing his release and trying to hold off as long as he can. When he’s not slowly falling apart or burning up or choking on the flood of things he wants to say to Dylan. As it is, this won’t last. Not with Dylan breathing obscenities at him, jacking them faster, the head of his dick riding against Tyler’s.

Tyler says so, grunts out another, “Fuck” and then a, “Dylan, I can’t. I’m gonna” before he feels himself tip over the edge, careening into orgasm wildly. It’s a small satisfaction that Dylan follows closely on his heels, because Tyler misses it, still too foggy to watch Dylan come undone.

Dylan laughs, a wild, wet sound that crackles up out of his chest and Tyler manages to pull back just enough to look up at him. He gasps out a “Wha?” and hopes Dylan understands.

“No. That.” Dylan laughs again, wraps his arms tight around Tyler’s shoulders and squeezes. “That was just everything I ever hoped it’d be.”

They’re slick with lube, sticky with come and sweat, and sooner or later their stomachs will end up fused together by the mess but Dylan’s wrapped around him naked and ecstatic and Tyler can't find a damn thing wrong with the world.

“Happy to help,” Tyler says, only half as smug as he sounds. Mostly because he didn’t _do_ anything. Dylan did.

Dylan pinches his ass for it, but his shoulders shake, probably still laughing. “Don’t take credit for my vivid imagination,” he says and groans, rolling off and over to lay down beside Tyler. “Or my apparently rockstar skills.” He makes a show of wiping his hand clean on the rumpled sheets.

“I’m not. I didn’t. It was...for me too.” Coherent speech evades him, not that Tyler would know what to do with it, what to say with it right now. Waiting for the other shoe to drop seems disingenuous considering how incredible he feels, but it can’t possibly be this easy.

“Don’t strain yourself,” Dylan says in a tone too even and empty for what they’ve just done, and when his brows begin to pull together Tyler shifts onto his side to touch, to reassure.

Dylan’s heart thumps furiously when his palm lands over it. “No, Dylan. I didn’t mean.” Thirty seconds of post-coital bliss and he’s already fucking this up. “It was incredible. Beyond incredible.” Tyler traces the constellation of moles at the center of Dylan’s chest, then the one caught between his ribs, presses a swift, sweet kiss to the one just to the left of his nipple. “I just...want.”

“Use your words, Tyler,” he says, and Tyler feels the frustration, ripe on his tongue, his lips. “You are not a Hale.”

And he’s not, Dylan’s right. He’s never had trouble expressing himself or his desires and this shouldn’t be any different, just because it’s Dylan. If nothing else, his honesty might offer some small compensation for the needless pining he put Dylan through.

“I want your mouth,” Tyler says, ghosting just his fingertips over the bow of Dylan’s lips. “Your ass. I want to taste you.” And he does, tucking in close to tongue at the graceful curve of Dylan’s neck, nip at the hinge of his jaw. “I want you to fuck me with that monster dick of yours, even though I have absolutely no idea how that’s going inside me. But I want you to show me. I just want everything. Everything we already had and all the stuff we didn’t.”

When Dylan looks over at him, his eyes are glassy, glittering, and Tyler leans in to steal a lazy, lingering kiss.

“I think that can be arranged,” Dylan says quietly, owning the weight of his promises and Tyler’s confession without question. Not for the first time, Tyler wonders whether he deserves the gift he’s been given. Dylan’s grace. His forgiveness. His patience. A single second-glance at Dylan’s face tells him all he really needs to know. Not that he can say things like forever, yet. But maybe he doesn’t have to.

“So are we sleeping?” Tyler murmurs, relishing the feel of Dylan’s skin beneath his lips too much to move away. Dylan shivers against him, and while it’s not an answer, Tyler fishes for the comforter, pulls it haphazardly across their bodies.

“Not cold.” Dylan smirks, peering intently through his lowered lashes. “Your stubble does things. To me,” he says, and then their fingers are laced together, Dylan drawing his hand down.

“Fuck.” Tyler hisses, shaking out of Dylan’s grip. “Already?” Dylan’s well on his way to hard again.

“Things, dude,” Dylan sighs, twitching violently when Tyler takes him in hand. “So many things.”

Tyler grins until his cheeks ache then noses his way into the hollow behind Dylan’s ear to hide it, and says, “I can work with that.”

 

* * *

 

Monday morning, they both show up ten minutes late.

In separate cars, sure, but Tyler left Dylan’s apartment wearing Dylan’s clothes, smelling like Dylan’s unique morning bouquet of shampoo and soap, detergent and coffee, sugar and hair gel. All because he couldn’t make himself leave.

He tried at least a dozen times. That was before see-you-soon kisses turned into stay-a-little-longer blow jobs and suddenly, somehow - Monday morning.

“Long weekend?” Holland falls in at his flank, hair still bundled into a haphazard bun, a scarf looped loosely around her neck. Good. If she’s not through hair and make-up yet, their absence has hopefully gone unnoticed. By most.

Dry grass crunches underfoot, sun only now peeking over the horizon as he trudges towards his trailer, swallowing a yawn. “Aren’t you late?” he asks, aiming to change the subject. Much as he’d love to scream his joy from the rooftops, they all have work to do and Holland can be tenacious in her information gathering.

“They changed the schedule,” she says, sweetly, and shoves a piece of pink paper at him. “Cheating dawn as dusk, I think.”

Tyler glances at the revised call sheet, long enough to see his name beside Dylan’s at the top. Of course. The scene they botched Wednesday night. Which, at this point, should be a cakewalk.

“I gotta...” he mutters, taking off for wardrobe at a jog.

Holland’s laughter echoes in his wake along with a gleeful shout of, “I expect details,” that Tyler is going to pretend he didn’t hear.

 

***

 

Kissing on film is still awkward. Even when it’s Dylan.

Thankfully, no one has ever said awkward can’t also be fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://kriari.tumblr.com)!


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